In its most atypical resident, AERTC's brightest light

One of the Advanced Energy Research and Technology Center’s newest clients is arguably its most experienced.

BAH Holdings LLC (“BAH”) has already been around the block, and it’s enjoyed the ride: Launched in 2005, the research-and-development company has already set high standards in the gas-detection industry, creating and licensing one of the market’s most successful products.

A master of “correlation interference polarization spectroscopy” optical technology, BAH Holdings is the mothership of two thriving subsidiaries. After launching its first business, CIPS Technology (for correlation interference etc. etc.), in 2005, the parent acquired Stony Brook-based Power Photonic Corp. (now its PPC division) in 2015.

Initial success came way back in 2005 in the form of a handheld methane-leak detector that operated on what Managing Member Charles Scolaro, who joined BAH Holdings in 2005 and now manages day-to-day operations, called “optical physics” engineered by the company’s principal scientist, Michael Tkachuk.

The science, in a nutshell: Different gases have different talents for absorbing different light wavelengths. If Light Wavelength X is blocked, Gas Y is present; how much of the light is blocked can determine how much of the gas is present.

The CIPS Technology business developed handheld devices leveraging these principles, and in 2005 delivered 20 prototype units – created by Dr. Tkachuk – to Con Edison, which had contracted the startup to create a handheld methane-leak detector. 

“They were impressed with it,” Scolaro notes. “They went to a supplier and told them they should talk to us, and we wound up licensing the technology to them.”

Today, that supplier – Houston-based Heath Consultants – is the nation’s largest distributor of handheld leak-detection devices and a Managing Member of BAH, according to Scolaro, with more than 80 percent of the market share.

Bolstered by the 2015 acquisition of PPC, adding narrow-band semiconductor synthesis to its core competencies, BAH Holdings has spent the last decade-plus cultivating new targets for its advanced optical physics. And throughout, it has enjoyed a strong relationship with Stony Brook University.

Back in the day, Scolaro notes, it was the Sensor CAT and the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, where collaborations with opto-electronic sensors development continued. As of 2021, it’s a new home inside the Advanced Energy Center, where the very experienced BAH Holdings family fits right in.

“We’ve been looking for space ever since we left SensorCAT,” Scolaro says. “I feel like we’re still in the startup phase.”

A mechanical engineer by trade, the managing member cut his professional teeth at a international water and wastewater utility before joining BAH Holdings. Although his prior focus was the integrity of liquid-distribution technologies, “the fundamental transport of materials is basically the same,” notes Scolaro, who took quickly to the idea of light-based sensors for detecting gas leaks and monitoring gas-transmission systems.

The company had long considered the benefits of becoming an Advanced Energy Center resident, but it wasn’t until 2021 that AERTC leaders were able to carve out an adequate space inside the thriving campus center.

“We’d been looking to get space in the center for years, but there was nothing available,” Scolaro says. “Finally, they took an old storage room and turned it into a climate-controlled lab for Dr. Tkachuk.”

Not only was the AERTC able to address the company’s immediate workspace needs – “We really needed somewhere for Michael to work unhindered,” Scolaro notes – but the support of the Advanced Energy Center leadership has been immeasurable.

BAH Holdings and its subsidiaries, of course, are many years removed from an “early-stage enterprise.” But that doesn’t mean they can’t use precisely the kind of professional guidance and support offered by the Advanced Energy Center team.

“I’m constantly being invited to different events and talks and workshops,” Scolaro says. “They’ve been very supportive in what we’re trying to do, and I know [Dr. Tkachuk] talks often with other people in the space, who share knowledge from a technical standpoint, which has been a big help for him.

“It’s great to work with them.”

Those connections will prove increasingly useful as BAH Holdings zeroes in on miniaturized devices for residential gas-detection uses.

Following the tragic January fire in a Bronx apartment building that claimed 17 lives, Albany is considering new laws requiring all statewide dwellings to install gas detectors that are connected wirelessly to utility providers. Greater New York utility Con Edison, meanwhile, is busily installing some 376,000 “smart” gas detectors throughout the region, and “we were fortunate to get an order from them,” Scolaro notes.

BAH Holdings is about to ship 10 prototype units for testing in Con Edison employee homes – and is “hoping to respond with a larger order” after that, the managing member says.

How large? Upwards of 200,000 units, according to Scolaro, which would “really put us on the map.”

“Manufacturing is a whole other question,” he adds. “We’d definitely like to license that technology to someone else.”