Corporate report

Dukane Seacom debuts longer-lasting underwater beacon
Sarasota-based Dukane Seacom Inc., a HEICO company, announced it has created the first Federal Aviation Administration and European Aviation Safety Agency certified 90-day underwater locator beacon.

New rules scheduled to go into effect Dec. 1 require the beacons, which help governments find crashed planes, to operate for 90 days.

The new DK120/90 locator also has a battery that is designed to last seven years, a year longer than the company's existing 30-day underwater locator beacon.

Dukane Seacom supplies more than 50,000 underwater locator beacons to the commercial and military aviation markets.

TransGenex Nanobiotech receives Florida Institute funding
The Florida Institute for the Commercialization of Public Research has reached an agreement to invest $300,000 in TransGenex Nanobiotech Inc.

The Tampa company is working to develop small (nano-scale) technologies to test and treat cancers and other inflammatory diseases. Its first product is a way to quickly grow whole tumors from tumor cells that can be used to test treatments.

TransGenex Nanobiotech licenses a 3-D cell culture technology from the University of South Florida.

“This funding comes at a critical time in our development, and, coupled with other funds raised, will enable us to rapidly move to product manufacturing and commercialization,” Dr. Sagar Galwankar, interim CEO of TransGenex, says in a press release.

Formed by the Florida Legislature in 2007, the Florida Institute for the Commercialization of Public Research is a nonprofit organization devoted to encouraging the commercial use of public research. Thirty-nine companies have been funded since the program's inception.

Municipal lien search company hires chief operating officer
Patrick Emrich has joined Property Debt Research of Fort Myers as chief operating officer. In this newly created role, Emrich will be responsible for overseeing the company and its subsidiaries.

Emrich most recently worked at First Federated Title LLC as vice president, where he started and grew the title company. Prior to that, he was the director of title operations for Home Discovery Real Estate Services Corp.

Industrial Plastic Systems hires former Ershigs executive
Lakeland-based Industrial Plastic Systems, which designs and manufactures industrial fiberglass products, hired Kirk Kuipers as its general manager. Before joining Industrial Plastic Systems, he was the general manager at Ershigs in Grand Bay, Ala., as well as with Ershigs in Sarnia, Ontario.

Chiles Group COO moves to Anna Maria Oyster Bar
Bradenton's Anna Maria Oyster Bar has hired Steve Ananicz as director of operations. Ananicz was previously with The Chiles Group on Anna Maria for 20 years, and was chief operating officer prior to joining Anna Maria Oyster Bar.

Anna Maria Oyster Bar operates three restaurants in Manatee County.

Draken International plays 'bad guy' for Air National Guard training
The Air National Guard hired Draken International for the two-day Volk Field Combat Readiness Training Center in Wisconsin. Employees and the A-4 Skyhawks aircraft of the Lakeland-based company were adversaries for air-to-air and air-to-ground pilot training. Officials from the Tucson Air National Guard say the training would have been five times more expensive if it had used Air Force planes.

Spectrio sale finalist for Deal of the Year
The Riverside Co.'s purchase of Oldsmar-based Spectrio LLC was chosen as a finalist in the “Deal of the Year” category of The New York affiliate of the Association for Corporate Growth Champion's Awards. Spectrio is a national provider of on-hold messaging and digital signage services.

Benjamin Hanan, an attorney in the Sarasota office of Shumaker, Loop & Kendrick LLP, firm represented Spectrio through the transaction.

The awards recognize the leading middle market (annual revenues ranging from $50 million to $1 billion) transactions, firms and dealmakers.