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On the Ladder: Pano Spiliotis

Pano Spiliotis, 34, of Pittsford is the CEO of FluxData, a Henrietta, NY, company that developed a multi-spectral camera that is on the International Space Station, capturing photographs for NASA, in conjunction with the University of North Dakota. / KATE MELTON

Pano Spiliotis Age: 34. Residence: Pittsford. Occupation: President/CEO/founder of FluxData

Pano Spiliotis, CEO of FluxData, can say he has a product that’s literally out of this world.

The Henrietta company he co-founded has developed a multi-spectral camera currently aboard the International Space Station that is capturing photographs for NASA with help from the University of North Dakota.

The camera lets farmers and landowners around the world receive images of their land, taken from space, to judge overall health of crops.

“Since (launching the camera into space), our business has changed drastically,” said Spiliotis, 34, who founded the company with his wife, Tracie, and Lawrence Taplin. “It allows me to go to prospective customers now and say, ‘This is who we are, what we offer and, by the way, the same technology is in space.’ … It’s been ruggedized, the capability of it now is a lot broader and it can be used for a lot of different applications.”

We caught up with Spiliotis to find out more about his cameras and how he started the company.

Our specialty cameras: Are made primarily for the Department of Defense, but are also used in non-defense applications such as university research, from 3D imaging to medical and robotics platforms. And they’re sold all over the world.

A perfect example of multi-spectral imaging is when: You have two apples that look nice and red, but with multi-spectral imaging, you can see that the one apple is bruised underneath the skin. … Because we’re looking at things that are not visible, like infrared or thermal, we can see that bruise. … Or it’s the needle in the haystack thing. If you know what the needle looks like, you can build a system that just finds the needle and not the hay.

What’s unique about our company is that: We can obtain multiple images of different spectral bands, synchronized in time at video frame rates. … That’s the great benefit of our products and technology. That can make our customers’ end product a lot more robust, and there are a bunch of ways that it makes their systems much better or possible.

We bootstrapped our company: We didn’t raise any venture capital, we basically started the company and we just winged it. … We formed our company, launched our website and actually had product to sell right out of the gate. It was just a lot of tweaking (at first). … (We used online advertising) and people would find us. Then they would ask a question and I would call and explain the technology and we would have an order.

We’re only a 10-person company: Everyone does everything, but my main thing is growing the business and making sure that what’s coming out … as far as products are top-notch, because we wouldn’t last too long if our products didn’t work. I really drive sales, which is my favorite part of the job.

My challenge: Is to prove that the technologies and products we have can be used for certain types of applications and in different markets. This is very cutting-area technology, so it’s trying to convince the early adopters that this is something that can benefit them or provide additional information.

My advice for young professionals is: When you start off, you will hit roadblocks continuously and they get bigger as you get bigger. If you can’t evolve, the company is not going to work. … You can’t just stop because you don’t have the answers to something. You have to find someone who is going to have the answer.

Rochester needs: Its young professionals to see what options there are here in town. There are a lot of small, emerging companies that are definitely innovative, that definitely have great products. … I don’t know if there will be another company here in town to employ tens of thousands like there used to be, but there are a lot of imaging and optics companies that exist here and … engineers need to stick around.

Shengulette is a Rochester-area freelance writer. To be considered for the piece, contact Todd Clausen at (585) 258-9883 or send an email to TClausen@DemocratandChronicle.com .