When recovery divers were searching in the waters near the Sewol ferry disaster in South Korea, they used VideoRay underwater cameras. When the Costa Concordia cruise wrecked off the coast of Italy, VideoRay was there.
VideoRay LLC is a global company that makes its home in Pottstown. It provides robotic cameras for a range of industries, from military and oil-industry customers to fishermen and undersea rescue crews.
The 15-year-old company is the largest volume producer of underwater remotely operated vehicles, or ROVs, in the world. There are more than 3,500 VideoRay units in operation globally.
The price of a VideoRay unit can range from $6,000 to more than $100,000 for the high-end system. The low end of the professional series is about $30,000, but it also sell two economy models that cost between $5,000 and $15,000, said Kate McGarry, marketing coordinator for VideoRay.
Cameras, sonar and radiation detection equipment are among the options. VideoRay has special software, laptop keyboards or joysticks to remotely control the vehicle.
What makes a VideoRay device stand out is its portability, said Steve Van Meter, a Florida-based consultant who bought the first VideoRay while working for the U.S. government.
“VideoRay is No. 1 (in sales volume) basically because of its size,” Van Meter said. “It’s a small, compact unit compared to other ROVs.”
Van Meter is retired from government work and consults with some companies on underwater robotics. He also does training for VideoRay. Through his consulting work, he finds new uses for the remote-controlled robots.
He recently helped a university in India use a VideoRay device to monitor the process of filling a flooded mine with sand. The university was unsure about about purchasing a VideoRay unit until Van Meter demonstrated it and taught them how to use it.
“When we first talk to them, they have one thing they want to do,” Van Meter said. “After we talk, they have 50 things they can do.”
More than half of VideoRay’s sales are outside of the United States, said Scott Bentley, the company’s co-founder and president.
The company wouldn’t disclose its total sales, but last year The Wall Street Journal pegged its sales at $10 million. VideoRay has grown 20 percent to 30 percent each year since its founding in 1999, McGarry said.
Its largest users are offshore oil rigs and the military. It is also tapped for homeland security, to retrieve drowning victims and by yacht owners.
“We have more customers in Abu Dhabi than Pennsylvania,” Bentley said.
Famous sites visited by VideoRay ROVs include the U.S.S. Arizona in Pearl Harbor and the RMS Lusitania. And it played key roles in the recovery efforts in South Korea and Italy.
In the April South Korean ferry wreck, VideoRay volunteered equipment and sent two experts to help search the sea floor around the ferry and inside the hull and interior areas divers could not access.
Six VideoRay units have been used for two years 24 hours a day as the salvage operation of the Concordia continues. The wrecked cruise ship has been raised and is being floated and sent in a single piece to salvage, making it the largest operation of its kind.
“(Complex salvage projects) are among our favorites because they do cool stuff,” said Bentley, who was on the scene on the coast of the Italian island of Giglio.
VideoRay conducts most of its business from its Pottstown headquarters, which received an economic development award from the TriCounty Area Chamber of Commerce.
Eileen Dautrich, president of the chamber, said the 2012 award acknowledged VideoRay’s investment in the community. The company paid $275,000 for a vacant building at 212 High St., according to the chamber, and spent more than $1 million in renovations.
Gorski Engineering of Collegeville implemented the design and ended up winning the National Excellence in Construction Pyramid Award for its work.
VideoRay was also a finalist for Pennsylvania Governor’s 2014 Export Impact Award. This award is given to a company that has significantly increased its export sales and the number of new foreign markets it sells to since 2011. The new location, with offices and assembly and repair areas, has been a key to the increase in sales.
“We love Pottstown,” Bentley said.
VideoRay renovated and moved to Pottstown in December 2012, settling into the former Levitz store. VideoRay still owns and has a small staff at its East Pikeland facility, which has 5,000 square feet of office space, a 2-acre test pond and a small airstrip.
In Pottstown, there is expansion space available planned for overnight accommodations, incubator space for related underwater technology companies and building space for local high school robotics teams, according to a news release from the Pottstown Area Industrial Development Inc. Total space in the building exceeds 40,000 square feet.
The new location enabled VideoRay to increase its workforce by 20 percent. It’s now at the equivalent of 45 full-time employees.
Contact Lisa Scheid: 610-371-5049 or money@readingeagle.com.
