Antenna Research Associates Awarded $200,000 Grant from Healey-Driscoll Administration for Construction of Automated Pressure Controlled Paint Booth

March 5, 2024

ARA named one of 17 grant recipients receiving $3.1 million under the Massachusetts Manufacturing Accelerate Program.

Photo: Christine Nolan, Director, Center for Advanced Manufacturing, and Dr. Joseph Kunze, CTO and Vice President of Strategy at ARA at yesterday's grant award announcement.

Logen Thiran, President & CEO of Antenna Research Associates (ARA), today announced that the company received a $200,000 grant from the Massachusetts Manufacturing Accelerate Program (MMAP). The program was created to help manufacturers across the state scale their operations by investing in new capital equipment to enhance production, meet customer demand, increase workforce skills for employees, and boost job creation. MMAP awarded more than $3.1 million in grants to 17 Massachusetts companies at an event in Charlestown yesterday.

ARA will use these funds to purchase and install a new custom paint booth at its Pembroke location to replace aging equipment. This award will enable ARA to continue to compete for and win contracts to provide its leading-edge technologies to the warfighter. This upgrade will also improve the efficiency, quality and safety of the Pembroke division’s painting operations.

“We are grateful to the Healey-Driscoll Administration for this award,” noted Thiran. “This is a huge win for us as we have been working on plans to improve our productivity through automation, robotics and additive manufacturing at our Pembroke facility and our first priority is to improve the painting area.”

In addition to ensuring the highest quality of protective coating on ARA products, this award will enable the company to upskill between 7-10 employees.

About Antenna Research Associates

ARA is a C5ISR company that designs, manufactures, tests and installs cutting edge antenna technologies and subsystems to keep our joint forces secure, superior and safe. ARA creates and delivers a vast array of products and subsystems for both military and civilian applications that combine innovative discoveries from companies it has acquired, including SI2 Technologies and AQYR, whose technologies complement and enhance ARA’s trusted systems. ARA’s capabilities span from Electronic Warfare and

Military Communications to Radar and Satellite Systems. For more than 60 years, ARA has provided our military with unparalleled information, improved situational awareness, immediate threat detection and precision targeting.

From ideation to installation, ARA supplies unique antenna systems in both high-volume and smaller quantities to meet customers’ needs and ensure success. Its US locations have fully staffed outdoor antenna test ranges, engineers, and on-site manufacturing lines and machine shops.

About MMAP

The Center for Advanced Manufacturing (CAM) at the MassTech Collaborative) launched MMAP in June 2021, and has since invested nearly $11 million total in projects for 56 small to medium-sized manufacturers statewide. MMAP invests in projects that will help employers meet the demands of ‘Industry 4.0,’ the innovation-driven production methods that leverage smart technologies, including data analytics, cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI), and connected technologies to maintain competitiveness.