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By Abraham Aboraya
June 25, 2013
Intelligent Decisions Inc. is expanding in Central Florida, as I reported yesterday, and this morning, I got to speak with Clarence Pape, vice president of simulation and training for the Ashburn, Va.-based modeling, simulation and training company. Intelligent Decisions bought the building at 3050 Technology Parkway in December for about $3 million, which is helping to spur growth. The company is two years into a $60 million, five-year contract to provide the Dismounted Soldier training equipment, which uses virtual reality to train squadrons of soldiers operating on foot, for the U.S. Army.
“We’ve started to spread out into other areas,” Pape said. How so? The company is branching into simulation for prisons (training guards on suicides, fires and fights), medical simulation for wounded veterans coming stateside, and is looking into law enforcement applications and even Department of State applications. The company is working on nine bid proposals currently, with six of them based out of Orlando. “If we could double every two years, that would be phenomenal,” Pape said.
The company is “absolutely” open to partnering, Pape said, and is having an open house July 18 from 3-7 p.m. The company has grown from about three local employees from its start to a core team of about 30, not counting the 63 trainers who work at different military installations but come to Orlando for training.
“Augmented reality is right around the corner, and looking at new and better ways for graphics and visuals is what everyone wants,” Pape said. “Everyone wants greater fidelity, more realistic effects. They’re looking for that enhanced capability that gets them as close to the real experience as possible. We’ve spent a lot of our dollars looking at that.
