Daines visits local high-tech company – Belgrade News

Daines visits local company to solicit solutions for D.C.

In front of a crackling fire with a view of the snowy Bridger Mountains, Republican U.S. Rep. Steve Daines talked to local businessmen about Montana’s role in homeland security and bringing Montana success stories to Washington, D.C.

The fireside chat was hosted at Belgrade-based Clarity Aerial Sensing Friday afternoon. The Belgrade stop to meet with Clarity founders was part of Daines’ tour of innovative, upcoming Montana businesses.

Clarity founders told Daines about their Belgrade business. CEO Bryan O’Leary explained Clarity owns some of the quietest and fuel-efficient planes on the market. Those two qualities make them perfect for patrolling the border and saving money on fuel. Clarity is also in the business of agricultural and law enforcement aerial mapping.

O’Leary set up the fireside meeting. He was visiting Washington D.C. and decided to stop by Daines’ new office. After chatting with the Congressmen’s chief of staff about Clarity, the Montana men decided on a hometown meeting when Daines was in town.

After hearing about Clarity’s fuel-efficient surveillance planes, Daines praised the businessmen for creating a homeland security solution he promised to boast about in Washington D.C.

“These aircraft are a great example of how cost effective private sector solutions can help make our government more efficient,”he said. “If used on the border these aircraft could save the government millions of dollars in fuel alone.”

Homeland Security is one of the three committees Daines serves on in the U.S. House of Representatives.  He also serves on the Transportation and Infrastructure and National Resources committees, both of which would be impacted by fuel-efficient planes like Clarity’s, Daines said.

Daines worked at Right Now Technologies for more than a decade. He said he remembers the Bozeman company’s growth from a handful of employees to an 11,000-person staff in five years.

He said growing technology businesses, like Clarity, are especially near to his heart because of his work background. Technology has enabled Montana to compete in a global marketplace, too, Daines said.

“Technology removed geography as a constraint for doing business in Montana,” he said.

After the roundtable chat, a Clarity pilot took Daines up in a Diamond DA-42 MPP four-seater plane. On a sunny afternoon Daines got to see the snow-capped mountains he grew up in, from a new vantage point.

Meanwhile, on the ground, O’Leary talked to media about trying to bring aviation manufacturing jobs back to America. Currently, Clarity’s planes are made offshore.

“The planes are produced in Austria” O’Leary said. “We hope to bring jobs here to the U.S.”

Daines lauded O’Leary’s idea as an innovative way to create jobs on home soil.

“It’s bringing offshore jobs onshore,” Daines said. “This is onshoring.”

The sensors mounted on the Clarity planes are mostly manufactured in the U.S., O’Leary said. The Bozeman-based Scientific Materials Corp., leads the industry in laser technology used in a variety of sensing gadgets.

Before stopping in Belgrade, Daines made visits to other emerging businesses in Missoula, Bonner and Billings. In Bonner, the congressman toured the old lumber mill site that has been cleaned up and turned into a trailer manufacturing business.

With still-fresh enthusiasm, Daines vowed Friday to share the story of successful Montanans with his political counterparts.

“I’m going to take these ideas, these made in America, made in Montana ideas, and share them with the world,” he said. “Starting with D.C.”