Synchrony Opens New Facility in Roanoke County

ROANOKE, VA—September 5, 2007 – Synchrony Inc., a Roanoke County-based company specializing in the development and production of magnetic bearings, controls, and power systems for high speed rotating machinery, today announced the opening of a new facility in Roanoke County’s Valley Tech Park. The company has begun to offer its products to customers, and the new facility will allow the company to greatly increase the scale of its manufacturing operations. There will also be additional space to increase its research and development activities.

The company will invest about $1.2 million in new equipment and upgrades to the facility, which it has occupied since April of 2007. Included in its new facility are work cells for the manufacture of its magnetic bearings, integrated drive trains, and electrical control systems. Additional space is devoted to quality assurance, including automated metrology instruments, and fixtures for testing of its products at high rotational speeds. The new facility has a total space of 58,000 square feet. By comparison, Synchrony’s existing facility, which it has occupied since 2000, is about 11,600 square feet. Synchrony will consolidate all its operations into the new facility within the next six months.

Synchrony currently employs 28 full-time employees. Most of its employees are engineers and technicians associated with its research and development activities. The company expects to double its employment to about 56 employees in the next 12 months. About half of those new employees will be technicians for its manufacturing operations.

“This is an important milestone for us because as we move our technology out of the laboratory and into the marketplace, it ensures that we can deliver our products in the large quantities and at the high quality levels required by our customers,” said Dr. Victor Iannello, President and CEO.  “We also can achieve the economies of scale that allow us to supply our products in a competitive manner.”

Recently, Synchrony introduced a Fusion™ bearing product that supports and positions the shafts of rotating machinery using magnetic forces, eliminating mechanical contact, wear, and the need for lubricants. Unlike any other active magnetic bearing, Fusion™ requires no external control system for it to operate. Instead, all the electronics are completely integrated into the structure of the magnetic bearing. This represents a revolutionary advance in magnetic bearing technology. Synchrony has also begun to supply integrated drive systems, consisting of high speed electrical machines, magnetic bearings, control systems, and power electronics, for compressors, pumps, turbines, and blowers. The drive train, because of its high rotational speed, is a fraction of the size of conventional systems, and offers improvements in efficiency, reliability, and diagnostic capabilities. Also under development is a starter-generator and power electronics for a supersonic cruise missile for the US Navy.

Synchrony has been located in Roanoke County since its establishment in 1993, and has received about $9 million in research contracts from the Department of Defense, NASA, and commercial companies such as Rolls-Royce. In February 2006, it announced that it received a $5 million investment from NewVa Capital Partners, LP, and affiliates of Third Security, LLC, all of Radford, Virginia, that it would use to develop and market its technology.

For more information, please contact:
Patrick Risen
Director of Business Development
Tel: 540-444-4203
Email:  pat.risen@synchrony.com

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