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Sniffing
out terrorism
It
wouldn't be quite right to say business is booming,
because that's just what this business tries to prevent.
Portsmouth-based American K9 Interdiction formed last
summer, well before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11
raised the national consciousness on homeland defense.
And that's the whole idea behind AK9I - staying one
step ahead of security threats by using dogs trained
to sniff out explosives.
"We
bought three dogs down at the federal training center
at Lackland Air Force Base three weeks before the (World
Trade Center) towers went down," says Owen Williams,
part of AK9I's ownership team. "We paid $800 apiece
and now the same dogs are worth $2.8 million over their
working lives. We had a two-year business plan to get
the company up and running, but you can imagine what
happened to that plan on Sept. 11. Since then, our phones
haven't stopped ringing."
Owen's
brother, Donald, was part of the Air Force's working
dog program and later served on the team that trained
dogs for presidential protection. The brothers, along
with H. Lane Mashaw, founded the company last summer
and began raising funds to purchase dogs - mostly Belgian
Malinois and German Shepherd Dogs.
Williams says the company plans to establish 22 dog
teams this year at an approximate cost of $333,000 but
with a potential return of $4 million. A team of one
handler and one dog generally pulls in $75 an hour or
nearly $280,000 a year, based on recently signed contracts.
AK9I is actively wooing investors and has already begun
construction on a new state-of-the-art training facility
on 86 acres. The site, in the southernmost part of Virginia
Beach, stretches across the North Carolina state line.
The
company also has a big bone to toss to investors. Williams
says he expects the new business to reach $100 million
in gross sales in just 18 months. "Every agency
that you can imagine in the world is scrambling for
dogs," he says. "If there were 10,000 of us
out here, it wouldn't be enough."
-
Mike Ashley
Return to Virginia Business - May
2002
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