SmartPlugs sets sights on corporate America – Sandpoint firm finds spark

SmartPlugs Inc. http://www.smartplugs.com/ delivered five 500-watt generators to the U.S. Army Wednesday. That tiny delivery could ignite the Sandpoint company’s future.

Bert Caldwell
The Spokesman-Review

Mark Cherry says he is confident the generators can do the two things the military wants of its hand-carried units in the future: one, the ability to burn jet fuel, and two, do so with exhaust too cool and quiet to be detected at 400 yards.

The secret is a spark plug that does not spark.

Cherry invented the Smart Plug, which can replace conventional spark plugs in almost any internal combustion engine. It’s already been tested successfully in 100 aircraft, recreational and automotive engines.

The plug acts something like a miniature diesel. Screwed into a cylinder head where a spark plug would normally go, the Smart Plug is actually a small cylinder with a catalytic stem in the center. The tip of the heated stem ignites fuel vapors, which send jets of flame into the engine’s main combustion chamber. Those flames touch off fuel in the engine’s main combustion chambers far more effectively than a spark plug does.

Engines run more efficiently and cleanly using almost any kind of fuel. A van at the University of Idaho is running on Aqauhol — 70 percent ethanol and 30 percent water.

Even more remarkably, the Smart Plug works even if the engine loses electric power. The heat created in the combustion process keeps the catalyst hot enough to sustain the ignition process.

That virtue has opened up the first commercial market for the Smart Plug — experimental airplanes. Kits are available for two types of engines that command about 40 percent of that market. The plugs astound airshow attendees who see engines run without magnetos, a frequent source of engine failure.

But commercial sales represent a small share of SmartPlugs revenues. Grants from the Army, Navy, NASA and Environmental Protection Agency have sustained the company and predecessor corporations that license Cherry’s technology, held by a separate corporation; Automotive Resources Inc.

SmartPlugs has also received about $500,000 in private funding.

To attract more capital, and introduce the company to more customers and potential partners, Gary Paquin was brought in as chief executive officer early this year. Paquin has experience in high-tech startups, and is familiar with the automotive industry.

"I’m not the person who should be at the helm of the company," says Cherry, who prefers to get his hands dirty tinkering in SmartPlugs’ office/workshop adjacent to the Sandpoint airport.

Paquin, he says, "can convincingly take our case to corporate America."

It helps that Paquin, who with brother Tony founded Medinex Systems Inc., is also co-founder of the Delta Angel Group, a potential source of new investors.

Cherry says he went through a lengthy courtship with a major maker of conventional spark plugs that ended with an offer so low for his technology he refused to take it back to his board of directors.

"Probably the most painful thing was to get up and walk away from that table," Cherry says. The experience convinced him no maker of spark plugs wanted the Smart Plug to see the light of day.

"It’s disruptive technology," Paquin says. "It’s going to change everything."

The generator SmartPlugs has modified for the Army is made by Honda. Paquin says the company hopes to expand that relationship. The chief engineer for another Japanese automaker visits later this month. And he plans a trip to Detroit, where his family has a history with General Motors.

If one company bites on the Smart Plug, Paquin says, the others will be forced to follow or be stuck making engines that are more expensive, less efficient and less powerful.

"I think this is the biggest story in Detroit," he says. "This is going to change everything."

Cars running on ethanol would drastically reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil, for example.

In the meantime, SmartPlugs will focus on aviation and a few other vertical markets, and finish the "proof of concept" trials for the Army. Success could result in orders for 1,000 generators per year for several years. Cherry says a consultant for the British army has also inquired about the generators.

Cherry has always been confident of his technology, but recognizes the tremendous inertia of industries that have relied on the spark plug for 140 years. The Smart Plug will have to touch off more than jet fuel.

"It’s like turning a supertanker," he says. "We’re building the team to make it succeed."

•Business columnist Bert Caldwell can be reached at (509) 459-5450 or by e-mail at [email protected]

http://www.spokesmanreview.com/news-story.asp?date=092103&ID=s1413308