Press Release – October 27, 2010

Boulder/Broomfield, Colorado

New safety instrument measures, warns and records. Ground Potential Rise associated with a high-voltage work site.

Colorado-based electrical engineering firm, Advantage Electronic Product Development, Inc. along with its subsidiary, Utility Crew Safety, received rave reviews for their presentation at EPRI’s High Voltage Laboratory in Lenox, MA. September 29 – 30th 2010. Advantage representatives demonstrated their innovative iPhone application which is the user interface for a much anticipated high-voltage worker safety instrument. The presentation took place at the Electrical Power Research Institute’s (EPRI) 5th annual Live-Line Maintenance Work Practices Conference. By invitation, Advantage/Utility Crew Safety experts provided demonstrations of the most recent technology to persons who are involved with high voltage work and OSHA or NESC regulations. The audience included safety officers, linemen, and supervisors who are concerned with how to improve safety for lineworkers.

“The ongoing increase in energy usage intensifies the probability of specific hazardous conditions for lineworkers. There are still far too many fatalities and serious injuries among workers in high voltage environments. We appreciated the opportunity to present the benefits of this instrument to the people who work and make decisions about worker safety,” stated Jody Singleton, Advantage and Utility Crew Safety president. “With the development of this utility crew safety instrument combined with the iPhone platform, the DOE and utility companies will be better able to protect workers in the field.”

In June of 2010, under the government’s technology transfer program, The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), granted the electronic product development firm an exclusive international license covering all product development, sales and manufacturing of their patent pending technology. Under their MFi (“Made for Apple” i-class products) development and manufacturing license Advantage developed the instrument’s user interface as an iPhone application. Using their expertise in instrumentation, Advantage engineers designed the wireless electronic product to increase safety for power and utility company high-voltage workers. Several major utility companies have already shown great interest in the instrument.

The Advantage/Utility Crew Safety team demonstrated iPhone technologies for real-time monitoring and alarming of voltages associated with high-voltage work sites. The demo audience expressed excitement about the development of the multi-function Ground Potential Rise (GPR) Monitor and were excited to begin using it in the field. Utility crew safety experts will introduce production-ready units in Rhode Island in May of 2011.

The Colorado-based electronics-engineering firm has achieved recognition for its expertise in instrumentation development including the award of a contract in 2009 where NASA engaged the firm to design a flight-qualified photonics dosimetry instrument for astronaut medical safety on the International Space station. Advantage has supported space & earth sciences, renewables/energy, and eco-friendly electronic products for 17 years in the electronic product development business. The company looks forward to developing future utility crew safety instruments.