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Salvo Technologies Inc, a private equity group, was created in 2006 to fund and develop manufacturing companies with enabling technologies serving the defense, security, medical, industrial, and commercial markets. Since our inception, we have grown with global reach and manufacturing capabilities on multiple continents. Providing world-class products and services, including imaging and sensing solutions emphasizing multispectral and polarimetric systems, high-reliability electronic and electro-optical components and assemblies, optical filters, thin and thick film coatings, and fire-control optics.
Headquartered in Largo, FL, with over 125,000ft² of manufacturing and five facilities in the US. Salvo Technologies specializes in optical components, thin film coatings, assemblies, imaging systems, and sensing systems. We are best known for our high-end aspheres, flats, and T-spheres for optical components, but also produce cylinders, prisms, beam splitters, and more. Our in-house coating shop can apply thin films covering UV, VIS, NIR, and SWIR wavelengths. We also offer bandpass, color, edge, specialty, linear variable, and high laser damage coatings. We also have a full lithography department capable of reticles, dichroic filters, and micro-patterned filters. Our imaging and sensing team puts all of this into OEM assemblies, spectral sensors, zoom lenses, boresights, and more.
The team began by building upon their core competencies with the launch of Salvo Coatings LLC, a separate division dedicated to thin- and thick-film design and manufacturing. The new business unit started out serving the defense market, but Salvo Technologies established it to advance coating technologies across multiple markets.
Salvo Technologies purchased the assets and customer list of Georgia-based supplier MK Coatings to form the new division in 2008. In the 1990s, MK Coatings started in low-VOC marine coatings but subsequently broadened to specialty offerings like epoxies, enamels, and optical thin films for niche customers. Those custom capabilities made its IP and personnel a good fit for the larger Salvo Technologies strategy.
Although the initial plan called for selling off MK’s commercial coatings business, the economic downturn of 2008/2009 demonstrated the value of diversification. As a result, the Salvo Technologies leadership team added another prong to its strategy, diversification, to ensure that its performance remained strong despite economic fluctuation.
The new division did well, developing innovative products like direct-to-metal colored paint for conduit manufacturing and a family of unique corrosion-blocking lubricants for the metal forming industry. Meanwhile, it inked a supply agreement with DaeHwa Paints in South Korea to enable it to fulfill large thick-film orders. A separate reseller deals with PPG giving it the freedom to customize PPG coatings for specialty applications. Salvo Technologies leadership’s vision of a company that produced what others couldn’t begins taking shape.
The next step was to move up the value chain by adding another division, Salvo Electro-Optics. Salvo Technologies developed the organization by combining its in-house expertise with another acquisition, this time buying the equipment and facility of Global Systems Inc. (GSI). Specializing in optical components like those used in rifle sights and lasers, GSI provided Salvo Technologies with the right fabrication capabilities to act as a supplier to tier-one defense contractors.
With the assets and core engineering talent of GSI, Salvo EO progressed from fabricating discrete components, which were finished by Salvo Coatings, to producing value-added subassemblies. The company added another accomplishment by organizing its operations to achieve ISO-9001 compliance. This introduced the third prong of the Salvo Technologies growth strategy, Quality, or better phrased: focusing on quality and lean manufacturing as well as Six Sigma principles.
Adding a class 1000 cleanroom gave Salvo EO the space it needed to pursue electro-optic assembly contracts. The Salvo Technologies portfolio now included equipment and personnel to fabricate, coat, and assemble optics. Still, the organization was missing one essential element—a design team to develop products at the systems level.
In 2014, Salvo Technologies began strategic discussions with Mil Aero Solutions (MAS), a supplier of high-reliability electronic components. MAS directly served the US Defense Supply Center Columbus (DSCC) and many tier-one prime contractors. The synergies between MAS and other parts of the Salvo Technologies organization, such as Salvo EO and Salvo Coatings, were obvious.
Also of significant potential were MAS’s connections and distribution channels. It became clear to the Salvo Technologies management team that MAS could play a vital role by contributing to the growth and generating market access. From the MAS point of view, the company could now offer custom products. Perhaps more important, it could assure its customers of product quality and delivery schedules because it had direct inside knowledge of the manufacturing process at every step. In 2014 Salvo signed a distribution deal with MAS. Ultimately Salvo Electronics was formed after making the relationship formal.
At this point, things began to happen quickly. Eager to leverage the synergies among divisions and facilitate collaboration, Salvo Technologies purchased a new facility in Seminole, Florida. In addition to corporate headquarters, the structure housed Salvo Coatings, Salvo Defense, and Salvo EO. The organizations shared laboratories, test facilities, manufacturing space, and offices. Gone were the days of telecons and Skype. Suddenly, collaboration was as easy as walking down the hall.
Our photonic profile includes electro-optical components and assemblies, fire control optics, custom camera lenses, multispectral and hyperspectral point detection and imaging systems, and sports firearm accessories. The Company has grown rapidly since its inception through organic growth and acquisitions. Salvo has become one of North America’s leading independent, vertically integrated Photonics manufacturing platforms.
Salvo chose to group these synergistic businesses, allowing for exponential growth. Our proven formula of Mergers and Acquisitions, as well as investment in our innovation and organic growth, has allowed it to expand rapidly but with a strong foundation.