Company Roundup: Marketsmith, Ocean Power Technologies, RCN Business, WorkWave
Marketsmith: PSE&G and PSEG Long Island have chosen Marketsmith, the fast growing Cedar Knolls-based marketing and digital strategy specialist, to be that company’s “agency of record.” This is a big win for Marketsmith, which will lead PSE&G’s consumer outreach strategy and provide creative, media-planning, buying, direct-mail, digital and production services.
Marketsmith’s philosophy, voiced by founder and CEO Monica C. Smith, is to help companies connect with their customers. In the release announcing the partnership, she said, “We look forward to strengthening the company’s bond with its customers and helping identify ways to inform and engage, making it easier for customers to do business with them.”
Ocean Power Technologies: Ocean Power Technologies (OPT) (Pennington) said it was partnering with the National Data Buoy Center (NDBC) under a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement to conduct ocean demonstrations of its Self-Contained Ocean Observing Payload (SCOOP) monitoring system, which has been integrated into OPT’s APB350 PowerBuoy.
NDBC has been focusing its efforts on addressing the rising costs of ocean observation tools and techniques, leading to the development of SCOOP, according to an OPT release. An initial ocean demonstration will be conducted off the coast of New Jersey, with additional demonstrations at an alternate site. During the demonstrations, site-specific measurements of meteorological and ocean conditions, as well as system performance and maintenance data collection, will be carried out.
The company also announced that it was rebranding its PowerBuoy systems as part of an aggressive commercialization campaign to more closely align the company’s PowerBuoy product designation with the best practices of analogous industries based on power generation and onboard energy storage capabilities.
Accordingly, the new naming convention for the APB350 will be “PB3,” corresponding to “PowerBuoy with a peak power rating of three kilowatts,” the company stated. This naming convention is based on ideal yet realistic ocean conditions resulting in a net AC peak power delivered to a payload over a 20-minute period after converting the incoming wave energy into useful AC electricity.
“While there are no established standards and methods for defining the power rating of a wave energy conversion device such as the PowerBuoy, OPT selected a generally accepted approach based upon best practices in other industries, such as renewable energy,” said Dr. Mike M. Mekhiche, OPT’s vice president of engineering.
RCN Business: RCN Business (Princeton), a communications provider delivering network solutions for data, voice and video, said it would broaden its service area into New Jersey through its partnership with Cross River Fiber, a Morristown-based fiber optic and telecommunications solutions provider whose niche is developing unique alternate fiber infrastructure for commercial and carrier businesses. The companies announced their intent to work together, with the goal of expanding RCN Business’ voice and data solutions, along with access into key data centers in New Jersey.
WorkWave: WorkWave (Neptune), a provider of cloud-based field service management and “last mile” fleet management software solutions, has been named a Future 50 Award Winner for the fourth consecutive year by SmartCEO magazine. The Future 50 Awards program recognizes the region’s 50 fastest-growing, mid-sized companies and small emerging growth companies that have experienced outstanding growth based on a combined three-year average of revenues and employee increases. In the past year, WorkWave has experienced rapid employee growth, up 36% year-over-year, to help match its strong revenue gains and to continue to meet customer demand.
