Reveal Imaging Technologies, Inc.

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Reveal Imaging Technologies, Inc. was founded in 2002 by executives from PerkinElmer Detection Systems and Vivid Technologies. RIT's latest product is the Reveal CT-80 Inline Station, an explosives detection system made for use by baggage screeners in airports which was orginally financed by a $10 million funding from IDG Ventures, General Catalyst Partners and Greylock. [1] [2]

The Reveal CT-80 is the first Explosive Detection System (EDS) to be certified as an approved product for Homeland Security under the Support Anti-Terrorism by Fostering Effective Technologies Act of 2002 (SAFETY Act). [3]

Lobbying

Robert O'Harrow, Jr., and Scott Higman wrote in the December 25, 2005, Washington Post that Reveal had received a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) contract that is worth as much as $463 million that was quite possibly paved by Rep. Harold "Hal" Rogers of Kentucky:

As a small start-up company in Massachusetts sought to become a major player in the business of homeland security, it hired a lobbyist and attended a fundraiser for one of the most powerful members of Congress.



The company was Reveal Imaging Technologies Inc. The congressman was Rep. Harold "Hal" Rogers (R-Ky.). The fundraiser, held Oct. 22, 2003, brought in $14,000 from Reveal and was the beginning of a mutually beneficial association.

Reveal had just received a government grant to develop smaller, cheaper explosives-detection machines to scan baggage at the nation's airports. Rogers, who chairs the House Appropriations homeland security subcommittee, said he wanted the machines to improve security while saving taxpayers money.

In the end, Reveal received a federal contract from the Transportation Security Administration worth up to $463 million. Rogers achieved his goal of launching the next generation of machines. In the process, he received $122,111 in donations to his leadership political action committee from Reveal executives and associates -- and a pledge from the company to move $15 million worth of work to Rogers's poor Appalachian congressional district.

Reveal's dealings with Rogers illuminate the intersection of politics, money and homeland security in the rush to make the nation safer since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The relationship fits into a long tradition of companies seeking sympathetic ears on Capitol Hill and of lawmakers securing money for their causes and their constituents back home.

What is different today is that the money at stake is the billions of dollars that the White House and Congress have set aside for homeland security at a time of persistent fear about another terrorist attack.

A Washington Post review of scores of documents, along with interviews with company executives, government officials and procurement specialists, shows that while Reveal was developing a machine that would receive accolades, it also was donating to Rogers's PAC and hiring two lobbying firms to help smooth the way with the government. Rogers pressed homeland security officials to deploy the Reveal machines and take other measures that he said would make the country safer while his PAC received donations from homeland security contractors, some of which he encouraged to create jobs in his district.

Phoenix CT-80

"The Reveal company’s Phoenix CT-80 uses electronics rather than rotating machinery to do its computed tomography; that makes for a smaller, less-expensive machine. TSA is buying eight of them for more detailed, year-long testing. (ENSCO, Inc. has also developed a no-moving parts tomography machine called SureScan, but it has not yet received certification.) Reveal’s Phoenix competes with the InVision Argus 4 in the smaller, lower-priced EDS category." --Aviation Security Newsletter, Reason Foundation, March 2005.

Contracts

  • December 7, 2005, RIT announced a $2.5 million contract from the Transportation Security Administration for research and development of TSA’s EDS Break Bulk Cargo Optimization Program, and a $3.6 million research and development contract under Project Cambria, TSA’s Advanced Weapons and Explosives Detection System development program. [4]
  • October 20, 2005, RIT announced a $24.8 million order for their Reveal CT-80 Inline Station explosives detection system from the TSA. [5]
  • October, 2003, RIT received $2.38 million from TSA "for a cooperative agreement with a total potential value of $4.75 million. The TSA grant, issued under the Phoenix program, augments Reveal’s ongoing development of the first explosive detection system designed to be integrated into the normal flow of baggage through an airport, including at the airport check-in desk." (pdf)

Management

[6]

Contact

Reveal Imaging Technologies, Inc.
201 Burlington Rd
Bedford, MA  01730
Tel: 781-276-8400
Fax: 781-276-8410
Website: http://www.revealimaging.com/

External links

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