Adaptive Materials moves to big, new home in Ann Arbor
The market will have to do some adapting of its own if Adaptive Materials products make as big of a splash as many hope. The Ann Arbor-firm has expanded from 2 to 60 employees and has moved to a new, much bigger home.
Everybody wants a generator near them, especially when the power goes out. But most don’t want to shell out major duckets for something that is either difficult to carry around or rarely used.
Ann Arbor’s Adaptive Materials thinks it has come up a solution. The firm, founded by University of Michigan grad Aaron Crumm in 2001, specializes in turning fuels like propane into electricity instead of heat. What that means is its technology can turn a small propane tank used for camping into a generator that can keep a fridge going in a blackout.
“It’s almost like an emergency generator that anyone can carry with them,” says Jon Rice, program manager for Adaptive Materials.
And big things are expected from the firm. It has gone from two people at its conception to 60 today and moved three times. Its latest home is a 60,000-square-foot space on Ann Arbor’s south side. That’s up from 12,000 square feet in its last home. The company also received a $6.2 million cash infusion from the state’s 21st Century Jobs Fund.
“We received the biggest award from that,” Rice says.
And the company hopes to capitalize on that funding soon. It is looking to commercialize its product within two years. And if it proves successful, then the sky (no matter how dark) is the limit.
Source: Jon Rice, program manager for Adaptive Materials
Writer: Jon Zemke
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