Where there's smoke.

Already the dominant supplier of devices that detect factory emissions, Tracker Technologies now wants to keep tabs on much more

As virtually any law enforcement official would attest, tracking down fugitives is a high-tech endeavor. And that's the basis upon which Tracker Technologies Inc.'s explosive growth is founded.

But Tracker hasn't been tracking fugitives of the criminal variety. It has been helping to track "fugitive emissions."

More specifically, the company has cashed in on strict emission policies at both the state and federal levels by developing high-tech devices that detect and monitor gas emissions from manufacturing facilities.

Now Tracker is expanding into other industries, developing products to trace people, products or most anything else, said company President and Chief Operating Officer Lane Elliott. The company is doing this through development of new bar-code technology and other devices that can be used to track different items, said Elliott.

The titles of chairman and chief executive officer are held by 81-year-old Long Beach businessman Robert Stockmar, who is still active at Tracker but only on a parttime basis. Stockmar owns about 65 percent of Tracker, with the rest of the equity divided between individual and corporate investors, as well as employees, said Elliott.

The company sells portable monitoring equipment to manufacturers that need to track emissions at their plants. But to an increasing degree, it is developing and selling bar code chips that can be implanted into just about anything.

This year, Tracker is projecting its revenues will reach $6 million, said Elliott, a 50-year-old L.A. native who was formerly a banker, insurance salesman, real estate developer and financier. The company was launched in 1990, but the early years were spent on product development and market research before it launched an emission tracking device for sale in 1994.

In that first year of actual sales, Tracker posted revenues of $1.5 million, said Elliott, and that result was doubled the next year. But the company's goals are far more ambitious. Elliott is aiming at revenues of $100 million by 2001.

Tracker develops kits made up of three or four different devices that are carded around manufacturing facilities by safety inspectors who check for emissions, The kits record readings that are then sent to a main computer bank for storage.

Tracker has sold its kits, which start at $6,000, to dozens of manufacturing facilities in the country, including Quantum Chemical Co,, a petroleum-chemical company in Clinton, Iowa.

"We were doing our inspections through an outside contractor but then decided to do it ourselves and went to Tracker for the units. We figured that there's just going to be more regulations rather than less and it would be more economical to do it ourselves. So far it's worked out and they have responded to our needs," said Pat Albrecht, an inspector at Quantum.

In terms of new products, Tracker has developed technology that puts tracing bar codes on different materials that can track items, said Elliott. In addition, the company has developed electronic devices that can be used to track things or people.

Among Tracker's new potential areas of business is law enforcement. The company is currently in discussions with the Los Angeles Police Department about possibly developing tracking devices for prisoners, said Elliott.

In addition to making tracking devices and bar-coded strips that are attached to or implanted into products, Tracker develops and sells computer software that stores and communicates information about the items being traced.

"The hardest part of the job is getting people to recognize the concept of what we provide and what we do. We have to show them the concept and then sell them on the fact that this is the new way of doing this," said Elliott.

The idea for Tracker came from Stockmar, founder of Stockmar Co., which is involved in technology and aviation.

At the time, Elliott was running his own company that specialized in energy, environmental and real estate projects. Elliott Capital had done work for Stockmar, who tried to convince Elliott there was a market for such tracking devices.

The initial investors in Tracker, including Stockmar, Elliott and various corporate entities, put up $2 million to start what was then called Fugitive Emission Control Inc. (The name was changed earlier this year to more accurately reflect the company's new tracking products, said Elliott.)

Today, the company is by far the main supplier of emission-detection devices to U.S. manufacturers, said Elliott. That fact, combined with new products it is introducing for use by retailers, law enforcement agencies and others, makes the company hopeful it will reach its $100 million-in-sales mark by 2001.

Elliott said Tracker Technologies regularly receives inquiries from other companies interesting in merging. In addition, he said the company has considered going public.

But for the time being, he said, Tracker is likely to remain a private, independent company.

Spotlight 

Tracker Technologies Inc.

Headquarters: Long Beach

Core business: Developing, selling tracking devices

Year founded: 1990

Year sales began: 1994

Employees in 1994: 6

Employees now: 26

Revenues in 1994: $1.5 million

Revenues now: $6 million

Number of products: seven

Founder: Robert Stockmar

Driving force: Designing devices and computer software that detect and monitor manufacturing plant emissions.