Arkansan helps California firm expand in LR.

WHEN ARKANSAS NATIVE Keith Wheeler left his job engineering manager in Southern California in 2001, he didn't think the job would follow him to Little Rock.

Wheeler, 38, continued to do contract work for Arma Design of San Diego while working toward his MBA at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

Then in 2005, Wheeler persuaded Arma's owner, Alex McKay, to open a Little Rock office. On June 1, 2006, Arma Design opened its Arkansas Research & Development Center in downtown Little Rock.

"It's actually turned out to be better than we've ever hoped it would be as far as the amount of work we've been able to bring into the office," McKay said.

Wheeler has since hired five engineers and is looking to add four or five to create new electronics products for clients or improve existing products using electronics.

"We're proving that all you need is power and an [Internet] connection and you can work anywhere," Wheeler said.

McKay said the success of the Little Rock office has him considering adding a manufacturing facility in Little Rock. McKay said he couldn't release too many details about the plant now, but it would repair and refurbish electronics equipment.

Arma, which generates $5 million to $6 million in annual revenue, has done work for a number of clients that aren't considered high-tech companies. It has worked on a project involving the development of a remote-control fan for Hunter Fan Co. of Memphis. Arma also is working on a project for AgRobotics Inc. of Little Rock.

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AgRobotics hired Arma last fall to help develop the electronic controls for the AutoProbe, a machine that promises to automate soil testing by using Global Positioning System technology.

Jeff Burton, who is handling the business development for AutoProbe, said that so far he doesn't have any complaints about working with Arma. Although the project isn't completed yet, "from what I've seen, they seem competent," Burton said.

Burton wouldn't say what AgRobotics has paid Arma, but he said he has been happy with the fee.

Arma typically charges for a specific project. But some projects are charged by the time and material used, which could be $150 an hour.

Design Industry Heating Up

Arma should expect to see more business because the electronics product design industry is heating up, said Mo Bakr, professor and chairman of the engineering and technology department at UALR.

Product designs that historically were done mechanically are now done with electronics, Bakr said.

"[W]ith miniaturization and the cost of the chips have come down, it's become very feasible to start doing some substitution for some of these mechanical functions," he said.

More companies also are outsourcing their engineering projects to companies like Arma.

"Electronics are going into everything; ... like parking meters all have electronics in them now," Wheeler said. "And so many industries need this, and they don't necessarily have the internal capabilities of designing it."

Good Engineers Hard to Find

Wheeler was alone when the Little Rock office opened, but he was eager to add engineers. And it wasn't easy. "I was looking desperately to hire some people," he said. "In this business you can't just hang a sign out and say, 'Smart people wanted.'"

One of the problems in Little Rock, Wheeler said, is the engineering community doesn't have the same networking prospects as does Southern California.

"Even in San Diego, we had trade shows, ... so it was easier to network that way," Wheeler said.

But electronics trade shows are infrequent in Little Rock. "We have a couple of opportunities to get together and that's it," Wheeler said. "And that way it makes it very challenging because that's how you find good people."

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Because the technology is changing so fast, companies are snatching up the new students as quickly as they can because they have the new skill sets, said Russel Bruhn, associate dean of the Donaghey College of Engineering & Information Technology at UALR.

Anyone who walks away with a four-year engineering degree is pretty much guaranteed a job, he said. And a new engineer can expect to earn between $45,000 and $55,000 annually. Wheeler wouldn't say what the engineers at Arma earn, other than it's competitive.

Wheeler said he would like to hire some engineers who are fresh out of college, but can't find them. He said he can't explain why he's had a hard time hiring young engineers. He said he doesn't know if the engineer graduates have moved away or are interested in computer programming.

Of the six engineers Arma has in its Little Rock office, four have Arkansas connections.

Leaving Arkansas

Wheeler said he had to leave Arkansas to find work after graduating from UALR in 1996. He said the jobs he was seeking--jobs that involved software and hardware design--were hard to find. But he found the job at Arma and moved to San Diego in 1996.

Over the years, Wheeler and McKay had talked about opening a satellite office, but nothing ever happened. "It had always been a dream of mine to expand," McKay said.

After leaving in 2001, Wheeler continued doing freelance projects for Arma. And in 2005, the time seemed right to make the move and open the Little Rock office, Wheeler said.

McKay said he was concerned at first that he might not find enough qualified people to work in Little Rock. "But we found that there are quite a few, very well-trained, very well-educated people that are from Little Rock," he said. "Sometimes we find that these people are working under their level of experience to get a job."

It also helped that the market for electronics project designers was expanding.

In the last couple of years, companies have turned to outsourcing their engineer projects, McKay said.

Companies "may have a staff of engineers that are very active when they are developing a product. But until they develop the next products, they don't have anything for them to do," McKay said. "This way, using us, they can hire engineers just for when they need them."

Clients turn to Arma to design a new product or improve existing products using electronics. Or sometimes clients want to incorporate into their products some new technology they've seen somewhere else. Then Wheeler and his team go to work. After designing a new product, Arma also can handle the manufacturing of a product at its San Diego facility.

But in some cases, the client takes the design plans and goes overseas for the manufacturing.

Wheeler said Arma will work with inventors who aren't tied to a company, but it would rather work with start-up companies to develop their prototypes.

The start-up company has the great idea but has dealt with investors on the front end to get the product moving toward market, he said.

With technology moving so quickly, nearly every idea can be turned into reality, though the perpetual motion machine or free energy devices are still out of reach.

"The thing that we run into most is not that it can't be done," Wheeler said, "but it can't be done for the price that your market will support."

Typically an inventor has no clue what it would cost to manufacture the invention, and that's the stumbling block. Arma, however, can offer suggestions on ways to reduce the cost of a project.

"But the way that technology has evolved, if it's too expensive today, come back in a year," Wheeler said.

By Mark Friedman

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