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Multiple disciplines lead to success for Structural Composites
Energy, enthusiasm fuel firm's growth

By Anne Straub
Brevard Technical Journal

Eric Roehl, Senior Engineer/Shop Manager at Structural Composites setting up Axyz cnc router for operation. Photo by Craig Rubadoux, © 2003.

Scott Lewit makes no apologies for himself. "I'm an egghead," said Lewit, who heads a West Melbourne manufacturer and another research and development company.

As a youth, Lewit, 43, didn't spend a lot of time wondering what he wanted to do when he grew up. The Long Island native maintained a steady diet of Jacques Cousteau specials and continued an interest in oceanography into high school. By 10th grade, he had his college picked out, and he later completed a two-year degree in biological technology.

It was on scuba trip to the Florida Keys that he passed through Melbourne on his motorcycle and investigated Florida Institute of Technology. His training there started him on a path that would go full circle back to the Melbourne area and two businesses.

Lewit earned a bachelor's degree in oceanography, but despite his 3.95 average, he had trouble turning the degree into a job. Companies that interviewed him said they'd hire him in a minute if he had had an engineering degree. "I heard that about 40 times," Lewit recalled.

He rectified the situation by earning a master's degree in ocean engineering from Florida Tech, finishing in 1985. He took a senior scientist position with a company that consulted for the Navy in Panama City and began working on the Swimmer Delivery Vehicle used by the Navy Seals. When Florida Tech won the assignment to study materials for the SDV, Lewit followed the money and returned to Melbourne.

Lewit worked at Florida Tech with associate professor Ronnal Reichard on the project until the two decided they could be more agile and win more contracts as a small business. They formed Structural Composites in 1987.

The company, which today employs 17 people, offers testing, engineering, analysis and design services. The lab is like a playground for a self-proclaimed egghead: Shock-mitigating seats for special warfare craft, airplane parts for a company that sells kit planes and speaker holders for the sound effects on a roller coaster are just a few of the current projects.

Sister company Compsys came along in 1993 with the mission of putting Structural Composites' know-how into action. Compsys employs about 50 people and makes supports for boat hulls. The company's primary product is the Prisma Composite Preform, a foam core attached to fiberglass skins. Preforms are laminated into place when the boat is made for use as stringers and bulkheads. The product can be made-to-order and delivered to boat manufacturers ready to use.

The technology reduces weight and improves boat performance, Lewit said. By using Compsys's product instead of wood, for example, a manufacturer could use a V6 instead of a V8 engine and get the same performance, and an additional vehicle class could tow the boat because of its lower weight.

Compsys counts 30 custom boat manufacturers among its customers and its parts help make 40,000 boats a year. Still, it has only 10 percent of the marine market. "This company still has a huge amount of growth potential," Lewit said.

Despite a current 11 percent downturn in the marine market, Compsys is growing, Lewit said. He expects revenues for both companies to total between $6 million and $7 million this year.

The energy and enthusiasm Lewit brings to the companies impressed Florida Tech oceanography professor John Trefry when Lewit was a student. "That's the key to success in any field," Trefry said.

Lewit also made a smart strategic move by combining two disciplines in his education at the university. "He was one of the first people that got the message early on that the future is in being multidisciplinary," Trefry said.

Degrees in oceanography and engineering give Lewit a broad base for innovation: True breakthroughs come from pulling information from different fields and finding the solution, Trefry said.

Lewit drew on his technical expertise to develop a low-cost factory automation system at Compsys. The system uses bar codes on the factory floor to drive the manufacturing process. Workers scan the code as each preform moves along in production to track its progress and monitor manufacturing. The bar code is hit again at the end of production to produce a customer label. Information enters a database that sends a report to customers' purchasing agents so they know what products are being delivered.

"For a very small company, it gives us very high trackability," Lewit said. He's refining the system to offer inventory management for customers.

Looking ahead, Lewit sees many possibilities for new composite products. The company is working with architectural engineering company BRPH to develop a product for industrial buildings. The composite skin would have the insulation already built in and would offer greater strength and longer life than current products. He'd also like to reduce the concrete in bridges: Composite materials would be lighter, allowing larger weights on bridges, and also faster to fix when repairs are necessary.

The possibilities feed Lewit's desire to "invent stuff," as he put it. "The manufacturing guys identify issues - I try to solve it," he said.