Invizeon to provide communications system to state of Georgia

When the state of Georgia went looking for a company that could help it secure its food supply, it wound up in Missoula.

Invizeon http://www.invizeon.com , the Missoula firm, believes many more will follow.

Georgia is the first major customer for a post-Sept. 11 communications service pioneered by Invizeon.

By VINCE DEVLIN of the Missoulian

http://missoulian.com/articles/2004/05/05/news/local/news05.txt

Invizeon and its partner in the service, AT&T Government Solutions, have contracted with the Georgia Emergency Management Agency http://www2.state.ga.us/gema/ to provide the communications technology known as CHAIN-EMN.

"We’ve been looking, and there are a number we could have gone with," said Paul Williams, special assistant to the Terrorism, Response and Preparedness Division of GEMA. "But AT&T and Invizeon really stepped up to the plate. They put together a mock system for us, and out of the ones we looked at, theirs was the most simple, cost-effective, user-friendly and secure."

CHAIN is Invizeon’s half of the service. Once an acronym for the original application of company founder David Todd’s product, involving a health communications network, Invizeon felt the word still fit its new uses. CHAIN is a two-way communications and alert reporting system that allows a wide variety of agencies and entities to rapidly send and receive alerts and exchange information.

EMN is AT&T’s half of the service. Standing for Enterprise Messaging Network, it allows those alerts and information to be exchanged on a variety of devices, from cell phones, pagers and fax machines, to land lines and e-mails.

"By themselves, they’re not anything great," said Invizeon’s new CEO, Greg Alderson. "But put them together …"

"And that’s the power," said Gerald David.

David, a group manager at AT&T in Vienna, Va., and product manager of CHAIN-EMN, said the pairing of telecommunications giant with the relatively small (42 employees) Missoula company has been beneficial to both.

"We could not be happier," David said. "These guys have done a lot of research and have a great application. It’s the most robust and market-ready product of its kind out there."

"And as a small company with limited resources, it’s been extremely helpful to have AT&T’s expertise and experience," Alderson said. "They tackled a complex problem it would have been difficult for us to try to solve."

The federal government has earmarked $28 billion for infrastructure protection programs in the wake of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Alderson said, and he’s seen projections that say communication’s share of the pie could reach $7 billion by 2008.

"The market is huge," Alderson said. "But we’re also providing a service the country needs."

There’s plenty of competition, too, but both Alderson and David said one of the biggest differences in their product is that most other companies sell and install communications hardware and software. CHAIN-EMN sells a service.

"Ours is solution-hosted," David said. "That means you don’t have to update your software, we do that."

"We don’t charge extra when it happens," Alderson said. "It’s a fixed price, and we’ll continually upgrade the service. As a new business, we’ll continue to enhance the product in order to remain competitive."

In Georgia, officials will be able to communicate quickly with any number of federal, state, county, city and private agencies.

"Agriculture and the food supply have been identified as a critical part of the infrastructure that needs to be protected," said GEMA’s Williams. "Often, we’re sharing sensitive information that needs to be kept secure – information that very easily, if misread, could cause economic damage. (Invizeon and AT&T) put together a very good product that did what we needed."

"Everyone thinks about nuclear plants, dams, railroads, highways, when they think about terrorist targets," Alderson said. "But one of the easiest things a terrorist can attack is our food supply."

CHAIN-EMN could have made a big difference during the recent mad cow scare in the state of Washington, Alderson added.

"There was confusion about where the animal came from, it took them several days to get a recall started," he said. "With this kind of product you get the word out in a hurry, to every agency that needs to know. They could have gotten the recall started way earlier."

Georgia’s system will allow it to link public health departments, law enforcement, county officials, veterinary diagnostic labs, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Agriculture, grocery stores … anyone GEMA wants to contact, by most any means.

The time saved, said Williams, could mean the difference between a public health disaster, and "heading one off at the pass."

Invizeon, meantime, is looking into many other potential applications for its product, Alderson said.

Reporter Vince Devlin can be reached at 523-5260 or at [email protected]