BRISTOL — The president of a California-based company specializing in rocket engines and military-grade body armor has plans for an East Coast expansion and would like to plant roots in Bristol. Michael Gallo and his high-tech business, Kelly Space & Technologies, Inc., of San Bernardino, Calif., could provide 112 new jobs over the course of a five-year business plan with projected annual revenues as high as $110 million. They are seeking congressional funding help facilitate their move to town.

“It makes sense to be in Bristol,” said Mr. Gallo, who wants to utilize local marine-trade and carbon-composite contractors in his company’s development of aerospace, defense and alternative energy technologies.

Mr. Gallo met with town officials, members of the state legislature and Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation (EDC) to explore and discuss the company’s potential move Thursday afternoon in the Burnside Building.

“The driving force for us coming here is the work-force base, the contractor base and the customer base — i.e., the Navy,” he said.

The company’s West Coast facility employs 55 people and works with 17 private contractors. They own patented rocket-launch vehicle technology and their core business is in ballistics with $15 million in annual sales. The United States Airforce and NASA are two of their customers. Other components of their business are wireless communications and, they hope, a new waste-to-energy technology that transforms carbon-based waste material from landfills and sewer plants into usable methane gas. They plan to begin a slow integration into Bristol over the next year, as funding permits, once they find a suitable site in town to build a new facility. Possible locations include the Reed-Rico property, Robin Rug, the J.T. O’Connell property and Bristol Industrial Park, among others.

“Our hope is that they would become the next Kaiser Aluminum,” said State Rep. Douglas Gablinske, in terms of the number of people that might be hired. “They’re on the cusp of coming here. There’s a commitment to this that it’ll take place — provided there’s funding. I’m 90 percent sure this will happen.”

Mr. Gallo is seeking approximately $5 million in congressional funding.

Why Bristol?

Mr. Gallo discovered Bristol’s hub of carbon-fiber companies and contractors after being introduced to them by Town Council Chairman Kenneth Marshall, who has spearheaded the efforts to bring the company to town. Mr. Gallo says the professional infrastructure in town is attractive to their needs in developing and manufacturing products like their new light-weight body armor for military use, as well as other possible applications for advanced composites.

“[Bristol] really has resources and core capabilities, and we’re interested in taking advantage of them for our business interests and to promote the technologies that we know will benefit the nation as a whole,” he said, during a presentation at a town council meeting late last year. “We saw a qualified work force — an underutilized work force — and we saw you already have contractors and businesses here that we can tap into for building some of our technologies. We’ve already hired several of your local contractors to perform some of the ballistic-protection material make-up for us.”

They are presently working and collaborating with Clear Carbon & Components in Bristol, owned by Matt Dunham.

“We’re developing a number of products for Kelly Space,” said Mr. Dunham, who did not delve into details due to contractural agreements. “We’re helping them commercialize their technology.”

The Kelly Space contract has allowed Mr. Dunham to hire back staff he had to layoff earlier last fall. He also anticipates hiring more employees as a result of the work.

Alternative energy program

The 15-year-old Kelly Space company would like to use a location in Bristol as a test site for their new technology that converts landfill and sewer plant waste into gas. They have been testing a new, patented waste-to-energy program, using the carbon-based waste material to produce a charcoal-like product which is then run through gas generator to produce gases, such as methane.

“What we’re making is pure methane with our rocket-based reaction process,” said Mr. Gallo.

He said his company had been searching for a demonstration site for their prototype plant to show that you can get rid of the waste material and generate [energy] that can be sold.

“What we have proposed to do is to build and construct a prototype plant and we were looking for a location. [Mr. Marshall and Councilor Raymond Cordeiro] have said, ‘Why not do it in Bristol?’”

Town-owned land next to the sewer plant located near the southern tip of Wood Street was mentioned as a possibility at Thursday’s meeting.

“It’s a win-win situation,” said Mr. Gallo. “It generates a lot of gas using a very small device. A unit the size of town council chambers could supply Bristol with all of its natural gas needs. We’re used to generating a lot of gas using a small device — that’s what a rocket engine does.

“The business model for this is not selling communities gas generators,” he said. “It’s really to provide a process — what we would be selling is gas at a cheap price.”

Community-orientated company

Kelly Space also engages in a number of community-based activities, including economic development and education, where their headquarters are located on the West Coast. The company has started a charter school with “tangible, hands-on learning” for 300 students from kindergarten to the second grade.

“We’re an investor in this charter school — we’re not making money on it and it’s not made to compete with the local school district,” said Mr. Gallo. “It offers the community another alternative with a different [approach] for instructional strategies that can promote science, math and engineering.

“The school has a laboratory enviroment for hands-on learning. It’s this kind of community activity that we’d like to bring to Bristol — it’s a kind of a self-perpetuating business model: I need to be growing the rocket scientists of the future, too, so that I have people that can innovate and employ. You have to think about the next folks coming up, and that’s the real thrill.”

What’s next?

Kelly Space is seeking congressional funding of approximately $5 million which would go toward building a manufacturing facility and their prototype for their waste-to-energy plant.

Keith Stokes, treasurer of the state’s EDC, who says the company has “solid technologies that make a lot of market sense,” also said it will be important that Town of Bristol representatives are at the “table” with Kelly Space when they are asking congressional delegates for the funding. They have to make a case that it will benefit the town in the long run.

“It needs to be stated up front that Bristol is the best place for Kelly Space to do their work and create jobs,” said Mr. Stokes. “It’s important they stay here once their research and development is completed and their technology is developed. At the end of the day, success is measured by the number of jobs and taxes — it should be made clear there’s a commitment to staying.”

State Rep. Raymond Gallison Jr. thinks they will come and stay.

“They want to be here — they could’ve picked anywhere else.”