NZ firm's innovative locator saves lives

HIGH HOPES: Spidertracks general manager Rachel Donald wants her company to be the preferred provider of location-based safety systems around the world by 2013.

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Spidertracks is in the business of lifesaving – and business is good.

Since releasing the world's first portable real-time satellite tracking system in 2007, the Palmerston North invention has found its way on to planes, cars and boats in more than 50 countries.

General manager Rachel Donald said the idea came from avid pilot and former director Don Sandbrook.

Mr Sandbrook was spooked by liquor baron Michael Erceg's fatal helicopter crash south of Raglan in 2005, or more specifically, the news that Mr Erceg's emergency locator transmitter (ELT) did not activate because its aerial broke on impact.

"Don said, `if that ever happens to me, I'd want to make sure someone can find me ... there must be an opportunity here," Ms Donald said.

Together with electronics engineer James McCarthy, they shrank US$20,000 (NZ$28,000) of GPS and satellite technology into a palm-sized box, eliminating the need for an external antenna.

They also recognised a gap in the market for an integrated GPS/satellite tracking system not limited to the cellular phone network and coverage.

A partnership with the Iridium Satellite LLC network was born and Spidertracks, very quickly, found itself leading the pack in terms of innovation.

"We lead the way in all of that," Ms Donald said. "We launched active tracking, then other companies launched it. We came out with a portable unit, then other people did. "We really have pioneered this ... it was the right idea at the right time."

While coy on the firm's net worth, Ms Donald said she was expecting revenue in excess of $2.5 million this year and about $4m for the 2011 financial year.

The firm is spending $250,000 on research and development in anticipation of launching Spidertracks US in the United States later this year.

Ms Donald said the staff of eight in Palmerston North, who liaised with service agents across the globe, gave the company an edge over its international competitors.

"They're all big bureaucracies that move slowly. We're the sort of people who will come up with an idea then have a business plan on the table by lunch the next day."

In terms of market share, Spidertracks is a minnow but Ms Donald hoped its concentration on the US market – which has about 265,000 private aircraft to New Zealand's 2600 – will change all that.

Ms Donald said the heavily regulated British market and the Chinese market, where it was illegal to sell products linked to the Iridium satellite network, had been the biggest hurdles to international growth.

But the company is not struggling for plaudits back home, having already won the supreme award and the emerging category at the 2008 Manawatu Business Awards.

Three years from now, Spidertracks aimed to be the preferred provider of location-based safety system around the world, Ms Donald said.

"We might not be the biggest-selling but we'll be the product everyone wants."

But the company also considered lobbying legislators and regulators to be a major part of what it did, she said.

"We're quite actively saying `the ELT technology you're currently mandating sucks. Here's a new technology that works. You need to be embracing this technology – you're costing lives'."

- © Fairfax NZ News