Miami Herald Profiles Pegasus Thruster
Pegasus Thruster: ‘It’s like flying underwater’
A Miami company’s invention that gives recreational and commercial divers a boost is gaining headway in the marketplace.
PEGASUS THRUSTER
• Business: Builds, markets and sells lightweight, battery-powered propulsion devices for commercial, scientific, military and recreational divers in the United States and overseas.
• Owners: Dean Vitale (founder) and Patrick Gleber (Tobacco Road partner) are the main partners. Some others also have invested in the company.
• Headquarters: Miami, with manufacturing center in Cutler Bay
• Founded: Dean Vitale developed the idea of a fast, lightweight thruster in 2002 and built the first prototype the same year.
• First unit sold: 2009
• Revenue: Approximately $140,000 in 2010; about $120,000 in the first four months of 2011
• Distributors: United States, Europe and Australia
Website: pegasusthruster.com
TAKING THE CHALLENGE
Pegasus Thruster took second place in The Miami Herald’s Business Plan Challenge in 2007. Find out the winners of this year’s Challenge next Monday.
BY JOSEPH A. MANN JR.
JOSEPHMANNJR@GMAIL.COM
Dean Vitale wasn’t planning to become an inventor, entrepreneur and one-man assembly line.
But nine years ago, the aviation maintenance consultant and longtime recreational diver got tired of dragging around cameras, spear guns and lobster bags on his frequent dives off South Florida’s coast and decided there should be a way to make underwater excursions less work and more fun.
Today, he and partner Patrick Gleber own and run Pegasus Thruster, a small Miami-based company that makes and sells lightweight, battery-powered devices developed by Vitale that divers can strap onto their air tanks or backs to propel them through water at speeds up to 170 feet per minute. “It’s like flying underwater,” Vitale said.
Since selling the first Pegasus Thruster at the end of 2009, the company’s products — which use an electric drill motor attached to a small propeller — have become popular among recreational, scientific, military and commercial divers in the United States and overseas.
In 2002, Vitale began researching DPVs — diver propulsion vehicles — devices that pushed or pulled divers through the water, like the ones used in the old James Bond film Thunderball.
He found that existing models were either too heavy and bulky, or required divers to hold onto a sled-type platform as it pulled them through the water. Vitale wanted something that was light, powerful and allowed divers to use their hands for filming, photography, spear fishing and other tasks.
“So I went to machine shops, ordered components and built a prototype at home,” said Vitale, who then lived in North Carolina. Over the next several years, he and his early partners developed five different versions of a lightweight, easy-to-use DPV and built some 50 prototypes.
After experimenting with different options, Vitale decided on a chargeable nickel-metal hydride battery which can last from 35 to 45 minutes if run constantly at full power, a small electric drill motor and an aircraft-grade, hard anodized aluminum cylinder to hold the motor and battery. The propeller and shroud are made of high-impact plastic and the 23-inch thruster weighs 13 pounds on land and floats in water. It is activated by a switch divers can reach easily with either hand.
“A big challenge was making the unit as efficient as possible,” Vitale said. “I had to make sure we had a reliable product of the highest quality. People’s lives depend on us.”
Between 2002 and 2007, while Vitale was building and experimenting with different prototypes, he and his original backers invested $192,000 in the project. “We used savings, 401(k)s and credit cards,” said Vitale, who moved his family to Miami in late 2002. As a consultant, Vitale could work part of each year on a contract basis and devote the rest of his time to the thruster.
Vitale, who won second place in The Miami Herald’s Business Plan Challenge in 2007, started a Web page for Pegasus during the same year that showed the latest prototype and test-dive videos . He soon began to receive queries about the thruster, which was still not ready for sale to the public.
Between 2006 and 2008, Vitale said, financial resources reached a low point. “We had a limited amount of savings, and were using credit cards and calling in favors from friends,” he noted. “We ran low on money, but never ran out.”
In 2008, Vitale met his future partner, Patrick Gleber, on a dive. Gleber was impressed with Pegasus and decided to invest in the company. “Patrick was more than an investment partner,” Vitale said, “he also brought his business, marketing and legal experience to Pegasus.”
By the time Gleber came on board that year, Vitale had a basic product that was ready to market. Pegasus already had received some exposure from its Web page and from divers who tried out the prototypes. Vitale and Gleber actively marketed the thruster at boat and diving shows, provided demonstrations and loaned units to recreational and professional divers, police units in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties and marine scientists.
Pegasus provided a demonstration at the underwater filming facilities of Pinewood Studios in England, where several James Bond movies were made, and has received favorable reviews in diving magazines.
Word spread in diving communities in the United States and overseas that the new, lightweight device offered such advantages as power, speed, reliability, ease of use and the ability to change batteries underwater. Divers with disabilities also found Pegasus easy to use.
At the end of 2009, Pegasus sold its first unit. “A recreational diver from Pennsylvania saw the unit online and bought it,” Vitale said. “He still has it.”
Since then, Pegasus has sold about 150 units in the United States and overseas. Buyers include Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts (Pegasus’s largest client to date), the U.S. Navy, diving instructors and dive shops, as well as commercial divers (such as oil rig workers) and recreational divers. About 40 percent of sales have gone to clients in the United States, and 60 percent overseas.
Divers have high praise for Pegasus. Brendan P. Foley, a maritime archeologist at Woods Hole, has been using the thrusters for about a year.
On a recent trip to the Aegean, two of his Greek scientific colleagues tried the thrusters for the first time while searching for a wreck.
“Using the thrusters, they covered more ground than they had in the previous two diving days, and discovered a 1,000-year-old shipwreck in about 20 minutes,” he said in an e-mail.
Foley said the units are easy to use, provide enough speed so that divers can at least triple the distance traveled in a single dive, are powerful enough to buck a strong current and leave the divers’ hands free. “They are standard kit on my projects now, he added.”
Kurt Clifton, CEO of Clifton Diving Ventures in Sycamore, Ill., has been using a Pegasus Thruster since 2003, when he tried out a prototype. “Its small size and low weight, and the fact that everything is out of the way to allow the individual full movement makes the Pegasus dominant in the DPV field,” he said. A retired police lieutenant, expert diving instructor and head of a foundation that introduces disabled servicemen and other individuals to diving, Clifton said that Pegasus “makes diving easier for me as well as other individuals with disabilities.”
Pegasus currently makes three DPVs ranging from about $1,695 for the recreational model to $3,495 for the commercial version, which includes a carrying case and extra battery. Divers can use single or double thrusters and Pegasus makes a surface-powered model for commercial divers who need to spend long periods underwater and use an umbilical cord linked to a boat.
Pegasus uses about 78 components, including machine parts made in Miami, electrical connectors from California, electronic parts from Ohio and other pieces from overseas. The units are assembled and pressure-tested at the Pegasus workshop in Cutler Bay.
After years of pouring money into the operation, Pegasus finally went into the black in the first quarter of this year as revenues surpassed expenses, Vitale said. The company had revenues of about $30,000 in 2009 and $140,000 in 2010. So far this year, he noted, sales have topped $120,000 and the company recently ordered parts for another 100 units.
In addition to the original $192,000 invested in the company’s early years, Pegasus’ partners have invested another $600,000, Vitale said, not including sales income that was poured back into the company. “The recreational diving market is important, he added, but currently we’re stressing sales to commercial and military customers.
“One of our biggest challenges is getting people to try out Pegasus,” Vitale said. “One very large police diver looked at the unit and commented, ‘This is so small.’ But once people try it out, they realize that it’s a very powerful thruster. We’re making headway.”
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/05/09/v-fullstory/2206332/its-like-flyin...
Miami Herald Profiles Pegasus Thruster
Pegasus Thruster: ‘It’s like flying underwater’
A Miami company’s invention that gives recreational and commercial divers a boost is gaining headway in the marketplace.
PEGASUS THRUSTER
• Business: Builds, markets and sells lightweight, battery-powered propulsion devices for commercial, scientific, military and recreational divers in the United States and overseas.
• Owners: Dean Vitale (founder) and Patrick Gleber (Tobacco Road partner) are the main partners. Some others also have invested in the company.
• Headquarters: Miami, with manufacturing center in Cutler Bay
• Founded: Dean Vitale developed the idea of a fast, lightweight thruster in 2002 and built the first prototype the same year.
• First unit sold: 2009
• Revenue: Approximately $140,000 in 2010; about $120,000 in the first four months of 2011
• Distributors: United States, Europe and Australia
Website: pegasusthruster.com
TAKING THE CHALLENGE
Pegasus Thruster took second place in The Miami Herald’s Business Plan Challenge in 2007. Find out the winners of this year’s Challenge next Monday.
BY JOSEPH A. MANN JR.
JOSEPHMANNJR@GMAIL.COM
Dean Vitale wasn’t planning to become an inventor, entrepreneur and one-man assembly line.
But nine years ago, the aviation maintenance consultant and longtime recreational diver got tired of dragging around cameras, spear guns and lobster bags on his frequent dives off South Florida’s coast and decided there should be a way to make underwater excursions less work and more fun.
Today, he and partner Patrick Gleber own and run Pegasus Thruster, a small Miami-based company that makes and sells lightweight, battery-powered devices developed by Vitale that divers can strap onto their air tanks or backs to propel them through water at speeds up to 170 feet per minute. “It’s like flying underwater,” Vitale said.
Since selling the first Pegasus Thruster at the end of 2009, the company’s products — which use an electric drill motor attached to a small propeller — have become popular among recreational, scientific, military and commercial divers in the United States and overseas.
In 2002, Vitale began researching DPVs — diver propulsion vehicles — devices that pushed or pulled divers through the water, like the ones used in the old James Bond film Thunderball.
He found that existing models were either too heavy and bulky, or required divers to hold onto a sled-type platform as it pulled them through the water. Vitale wanted something that was light, powerful and allowed divers to use their hands for filming, photography, spear fishing and other tasks.
“So I went to machine shops, ordered components and built a prototype at home,” said Vitale, who then lived in North Carolina. Over the next several years, he and his early partners developed five different versions of a lightweight, easy-to-use DPV and built some 50 prototypes.
After experimenting with different options, Vitale decided on a chargeable nickel-metal hydride battery which can last from 35 to 45 minutes if run constantly at full power, a small electric drill motor and an aircraft-grade, hard anodized aluminum cylinder to hold the motor and battery. The propeller and shroud are made of high-impact plastic and the 23-inch thruster weighs 13 pounds on land and floats in water. It is activated by a switch divers can reach easily with either hand.
“A big challenge was making the unit as efficient as possible,” Vitale said. “I had to make sure we had a reliable product of the highest quality. People’s lives depend on us.”
Between 2002 and 2007, while Vitale was building and experimenting with different prototypes, he and his original backers invested $192,000 in the project. “We used savings, 401(k)s and credit cards,” said Vitale, who moved his family to Miami in late 2002. As a consultant, Vitale could work part of each year on a contract basis and devote the rest of his time to the thruster.
Vitale, who won second place in The Miami Herald’s Business Plan Challenge in 2007, started a Web page for Pegasus during the same year that showed the latest prototype and test-dive videos . He soon began to receive queries about the thruster, which was still not ready for sale to the public.
Between 2006 and 2008, Vitale said, financial resources reached a low point. “We had a limited amount of savings, and were using credit cards and calling in favors from friends,” he noted. “We ran low on money, but never ran out.”
In 2008, Vitale met his future partner, Patrick Gleber, on a dive. Gleber was impressed with Pegasus and decided to invest in the company. “Patrick was more than an investment partner,” Vitale said, “he also brought his business, marketing and legal experience to Pegasus.”
By the time Gleber came on board that year, Vitale had a basic product that was ready to market. Pegasus already had received some exposure from its Web page and from divers who tried out the prototypes. Vitale and Gleber actively marketed the thruster at boat and diving shows, provided demonstrations and loaned units to recreational and professional divers, police units in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties and marine scientists.
Pegasus provided a demonstration at the underwater filming facilities of Pinewood Studios in England, where several James Bond movies were made, and has received favorable reviews in diving magazines.
Word spread in diving communities in the United States and overseas that the new, lightweight device offered such advantages as power, speed, reliability, ease of use and the ability to change batteries underwater. Divers with disabilities also found Pegasus easy to use.
At the end of 2009, Pegasus sold its first unit. “A recreational diver from Pennsylvania saw the unit online and bought it,” Vitale said. “He still has it.”
Since then, Pegasus has sold about 150 units in the United States and overseas. Buyers include Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts (Pegasus’s largest client to date), the U.S. Navy, diving instructors and dive shops, as well as commercial divers (such as oil rig workers) and recreational divers. About 40 percent of sales have gone to clients in the United States, and 60 percent overseas.
Divers have high praise for Pegasus. Brendan P. Foley, a maritime archeologist at Woods Hole, has been using the thrusters for about a year.
On a recent trip to the Aegean, two of his Greek scientific colleagues tried the thrusters for the first time while searching for a wreck.
“Using the thrusters, they covered more ground than they had in the previous two diving days, and discovered a 1,000-year-old shipwreck in about 20 minutes,” he said in an e-mail.
Foley said the units are easy to use, provide enough speed so that divers can at least triple the distance traveled in a single dive, are powerful enough to buck a strong current and leave the divers’ hands free. “They are standard kit on my projects now, he added.”
Kurt Clifton, CEO of Clifton Diving Ventures in Sycamore, Ill., has been using a Pegasus Thruster since 2003, when he tried out a prototype. “Its small size and low weight, and the fact that everything is out of the way to allow the individual full movement makes the Pegasus dominant in the DPV field,” he said. A retired police lieutenant, expert diving instructor and head of a foundation that introduces disabled servicemen and other individuals to diving, Clifton said that Pegasus “makes diving easier for me as well as other individuals with disabilities.”
Pegasus currently makes three DPVs ranging from about $1,695 for the recreational model to $3,495 for the commercial version, which includes a carrying case and extra battery. Divers can use single or double thrusters and Pegasus makes a surface-powered model for commercial divers who need to spend long periods underwater and use an umbilical cord linked to a boat.
Pegasus uses about 78 components, including machine parts made in Miami, electrical connectors from California, electronic parts from Ohio and other pieces from overseas. The units are assembled and pressure-tested at the Pegasus workshop in Cutler Bay.
After years of pouring money into the operation, Pegasus finally went into the black in the first quarter of this year as revenues surpassed expenses, Vitale said. The company had revenues of about $30,000 in 2009 and $140,000 in 2010. So far this year, he noted, sales have topped $120,000 and the company recently ordered parts for another 100 units.
In addition to the original $192,000 invested in the company’s early years, Pegasus’ partners have invested another $600,000, Vitale said, not including sales income that was poured back into the company. “The recreational diving market is important, he added, but currently we’re stressing sales to commercial and military customers.
“One of our biggest challenges is getting people to try out Pegasus,” Vitale said. “One very large police diver looked at the unit and commented, ‘This is so small.’ But once people try it out, they realize that it’s a very powerful thruster. We’re making headway.”
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/05/09/v-fullstory/2206332/its-like-flyin...
Miami Herald Profiles Pegasus Thruster
Pegasus Thruster: ‘It’s like flying underwater’
A Miami company’s invention that gives recreational and commercial divers a boost is gaining headway in the marketplace.
PEGASUS THRUSTER
• Business: Builds, markets and sells lightweight, battery-powered propulsion devices for commercial, scientific, military and recreational divers in the United States and overseas.
• Owners: Dean Vitale (founder) and Patrick Gleber (Tobacco Road partner) are the main partners. Some others also have invested in the company.
• Headquarters: Miami, with manufacturing center in Cutler Bay
• Founded: Dean Vitale developed the idea of a fast, lightweight thruster in 2002 and built the first prototype the same year.
• First unit sold: 2009
• Revenue: Approximately $140,000 in 2010; about $120,000 in the first four months of 2011
• Distributors: United States, Europe and Australia
Website: pegasusthruster.com
TAKING THE CHALLENGE
Pegasus Thruster took second place in The Miami Herald’s Business Plan Challenge in 2007. Find out the winners of this year’s Challenge next Monday.
BY JOSEPH A. MANN JR.
JOSEPHMANNJR@GMAIL.COM
Dean Vitale wasn’t planning to become an inventor, entrepreneur and one-man assembly line.
But nine years ago, the aviation maintenance consultant and longtime recreational diver got tired of dragging around cameras, spear guns and lobster bags on his frequent dives off South Florida’s coast and decided there should be a way to make underwater excursions less work and more fun.
Today, he and partner Patrick Gleber own and run Pegasus Thruster, a small Miami-based company that makes and sells lightweight, battery-powered devices developed by Vitale that divers can strap onto their air tanks or backs to propel them through water at speeds up to 170 feet per minute. “It’s like flying underwater,” Vitale said.
Since selling the first Pegasus Thruster at the end of 2009, the company’s products — which use an electric drill motor attached to a small propeller — have become popular among recreational, scientific, military and commercial divers in the United States and overseas.
In 2002, Vitale began researching DPVs — diver propulsion vehicles — devices that pushed or pulled divers through the water, like the ones used in the old James Bond film Thunderball.
He found that existing models were either too heavy and bulky, or required divers to hold onto a sled-type platform as it pulled them through the water. Vitale wanted something that was light, powerful and allowed divers to use their hands for filming, photography, spear fishing and other tasks.
“So I went to machine shops, ordered components and built a prototype at home,” said Vitale, who then lived in North Carolina. Over the next several years, he and his early partners developed five different versions of a lightweight, easy-to-use DPV and built some 50 prototypes.
After experimenting with different options, Vitale decided on a chargeable nickel-metal hydride battery which can last from 35 to 45 minutes if run constantly at full power, a small electric drill motor and an aircraft-grade, hard anodized aluminum cylinder to hold the motor and battery. The propeller and shroud are made of high-impact plastic and the 23-inch thruster weighs 13 pounds on land and floats in water. It is activated by a switch divers can reach easily with either hand.
“A big challenge was making the unit as efficient as possible,” Vitale said. “I had to make sure we had a reliable product of the highest quality. People’s lives depend on us.”
Between 2002 and 2007, while Vitale was building and experimenting with different prototypes, he and his original backers invested $192,000 in the project. “We used savings, 401(k)s and credit cards,” said Vitale, who moved his family to Miami in late 2002. As a consultant, Vitale could work part of each year on a contract basis and devote the rest of his time to the thruster.
Vitale, who won second place in The Miami Herald’s Business Plan Challenge in 2007, started a Web page for Pegasus during the same year that showed the latest prototype and test-dive videos . He soon began to receive queries about the thruster, which was still not ready for sale to the public.
Between 2006 and 2008, Vitale said, financial resources reached a low point. “We had a limited amount of savings, and were using credit cards and calling in favors from friends,” he noted. “We ran low on money, but never ran out.”
In 2008, Vitale met his future partner, Patrick Gleber, on a dive. Gleber was impressed with Pegasus and decided to invest in the company. “Patrick was more than an investment partner,” Vitale said, “he also brought his business, marketing and legal experience to Pegasus.”
By the time Gleber came on board that year, Vitale had a basic product that was ready to market. Pegasus already had received some exposure from its Web page and from divers who tried out the prototypes. Vitale and Gleber actively marketed the thruster at boat and diving shows, provided demonstrations and loaned units to recreational and professional divers, police units in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties and marine scientists.
Pegasus provided a demonstration at the underwater filming facilities of Pinewood Studios in England, where several James Bond movies were made, and has received favorable reviews in diving magazines.
Word spread in diving communities in the United States and overseas that the new, lightweight device offered such advantages as power, speed, reliability, ease of use and the ability to change batteries underwater. Divers with disabilities also found Pegasus easy to use.
At the end of 2009, Pegasus sold its first unit. “A recreational diver from Pennsylvania saw the unit online and bought it,” Vitale said. “He still has it.”
Since then, Pegasus has sold about 150 units in the United States and overseas. Buyers include Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts (Pegasus’s largest client to date), the U.S. Navy, diving instructors and dive shops, as well as commercial divers (such as oil rig workers) and recreational divers. About 40 percent of sales have gone to clients in the United States, and 60 percent overseas.
Divers have high praise for Pegasus. Brendan P. Foley, a maritime archeologist at Woods Hole, has been using the thrusters for about a year.
On a recent trip to the Aegean, two of his Greek scientific colleagues tried the thrusters for the first time while searching for a wreck.
“Using the thrusters, they covered more ground than they had in the previous two diving days, and discovered a 1,000-year-old shipwreck in about 20 minutes,” he said in an e-mail.
Foley said the units are easy to use, provide enough speed so that divers can at least triple the distance traveled in a single dive, are powerful enough to buck a strong current and leave the divers’ hands free. “They are standard kit on my projects now, he added.”
Kurt Clifton, CEO of Clifton Diving Ventures in Sycamore, Ill., has been using a Pegasus Thruster since 2003, when he tried out a prototype. “Its small size and low weight, and the fact that everything is out of the way to allow the individual full movement makes the Pegasus dominant in the DPV field,” he said. A retired police lieutenant, expert diving instructor and head of a foundation that introduces disabled servicemen and other individuals to diving, Clifton said that Pegasus “makes diving easier for me as well as other individuals with disabilities.”
Pegasus currently makes three DPVs ranging from about $1,695 for the recreational model to $3,495 for the commercial version, which includes a carrying case and extra battery. Divers can use single or double thrusters and Pegasus makes a surface-powered model for commercial divers who need to spend long periods underwater and use an umbilical cord linked to a boat.
Pegasus uses about 78 components, including machine parts made in Miami, electrical connectors from California, electronic parts from Ohio and other pieces from overseas. The units are assembled and pressure-tested at the Pegasus workshop in Cutler Bay.
After years of pouring money into the operation, Pegasus finally went into the black in the first quarter of this year as revenues surpassed expenses, Vitale said. The company had revenues of about $30,000 in 2009 and $140,000 in 2010. So far this year, he noted, sales have topped $120,000 and the company recently ordered parts for another 100 units.
In addition to the original $192,000 invested in the company’s early years, Pegasus’ partners have invested another $600,000, Vitale said, not including sales income that was poured back into the company. “The recreational diving market is important, he added, but currently we’re stressing sales to commercial and military customers.
“One of our biggest challenges is getting people to try out Pegasus,” Vitale said. “One very large police diver looked at the unit and commented, ‘This is so small.’ But once people try it out, they realize that it’s a very powerful thruster. We’re making headway.”
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/05/09/v-fullstory/2206332/its-like-flyin...
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