Company name: Laser Technology
Headquarters: Centennial, Colo.
Signature Product: LTI 20/20 TruVISION
Website: https://www.lasertech.com/
1. Where did your company name originate from?
We were originally formed under the name International Measurement and Control. It is quite a mouthful, and we eventually adopted a name that describes exactly what we do: Laser Technology. During a recent rebrand, we shortened our name to what everyone calls us anyway: Laser Tech.
2. What was the inspiration behind starting your company?
We have always worked closely with the U.S. government, starting in 1984 with a hydrographic survey system for the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers. Once we had established success in this area, our founder and CEO David Williams asked the question, “Why not incorporate the technology into the speed enforcement market?” Our first commercially available speed laser, the LTI 20/20 Marksman, debuted in 1991. NASA then modified this speed gun for use as a hand-held speed and proximity sensor for space shuttle rendezvous and docking.
3. What is your signature product and how does it work?
Our flagship product is the LTI 20/20 TruVISION. This speed gun combines lidar speed measurements with photo and video to create one of the most sophisticated speed and traffic enforcement products on the market. We value smart tech that is simple to use and this speed gun hits that mark – the visual interface is intuitive and the buttons are easy to use even with gloves. Additionally, you needn’t be a professional photographer to get vivid HD quality images of the speeding infractions. Just point and shoot and let the AdapTec™ technology take care of the focus, iris and shutter settings for you.
4. Why do you believe your products are essential to the police community?
Lidar speed measurement can be used to pinpoint vehicles, even in dense traffic. This contributes to a program of effective traffic enforcement while also providing a tool that helps keep professionals safe in the course of their day. We offer a selection of products including the compact TruSpeed® S – ideal for small departments and motor officers, software that collects and compiles data for speed surveys, and mapping kits that enable officers to map and clear crash scenes efficiently.
5. What has been the biggest challenge your company has faced?
The greatest challenge we face comes whenever we choose to retire a product.
We go to great lengths to build extremely durable products. Because they are designed with such robustness, professionals use these tools every day, day after day for decades. Many of our products have literally been in the field for 20-25 years. It is our intent to support our products through their lifecycle, and with this type of product longevity, sometimes the electronic component manufacturer might not carry parts for something that old. Especially today, with the exponential growth in the world of technology, parts have become harder and harder to source.
Laser Tech will always do its best to support and take care of our customers, regardless of the age of the equipment and continue to design new technology to replace legacy products.
6. What makes your company unique?
We were the first to bring lidar to speed enforcement. The development of the LTI 20/20 Marksman in 1991 and the subsequent 1996 judicial ruling accepting the laser speed gun measurements as admissible evidence paved the way for our products to become agency-certified across the United States.
7. What do your customers like best about you and your products?
We hear many stories praising the durability and longevity of our products. We’re also quite proud of our service team, who can repair and return the rare broken unit quickly – in about 15 business days or less, depending on shipping conditions.
8. What is the most rewarding part of serving the first responder/local government community?
The most rewarding part of serving first responders and local governments is knowing that we fulfil a crucial support role in providing this community with speed enforcement tools that ultimately save lives. Many of our law enforcement community have shared with us that law enforcement is not just a job but, rather, a calling. A calling to serve and protect. We are honored to partner with them as they take to the roadways to make them safer for all of us. Again, the most rewarding part is that we take it as our calling as well.
9. Do you support any charitable organizations within public safety/community? Tell us more.
Laser Tech takes its corporate citizenry quite seriously. LTI supports projects in our own backyard of Colorado and also works through different states’ organizations to sponsor events dealing with public education in driver safety, child safety programs, along with pedestrian and bicycle safety. Especially near to the heart of LTI’s family is the Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) organization. We are also privileged to have one of our executive management team on the board for the Colorado chapter of this organization.
10. Is there any fun fact or trivia that you’d like to share with our users about you or your company?
As the story goes, our UltraLyte unit, which has been the workhorse of our speed enforcement fleet for over 20 years, was actually designed on a napkin over dinner. Here is the funny part: Our Chief Technical Officer and engineering team had been working feverishly on the design and reached an impasse. The CTO took the engineers out for dinner (as they had been working late nights) to relax a bit and recharge. It was over that dinner that many of the design features for the UltraLyte unit were born; all drawn up on napkins. It is funny how and where great sparks of ideas can fly. They were at the restaurant for a long while that night, so we apologize these years later for taking up their valuable restaurant table space.
11. What’s next for your company? Any upcoming new projects or initiatives?
Laser Tech is always looking to the future and thinking of what we can design to make our roads safer and keep police officers out of harm’s way while performing their tasks. This is part of our DNA and our mission as a company. As today’s technology takes smaller and smaller footprints, LTI continues to provide law enforcement tools that are quicker, easier to setup, intuitive to use, and smaller and lighter in weight. We do this in addition to the accuracy that you have come to expect from an LTI 20/20 product. Now, as to what we are planning next… keep watching, exciting things are just around the corner.