I received a yellow envelope from Jennifer, filled with joy, late last week.  You guys certainly went above and beyond, and I just wanted to give you my heartfelt thanks!  Nick, my son loves the new pushbutton end-cap, as well; he can't wait for Tuesday's Troop meeting, where he'll no doubt show it off to all the other "flashlight nerds" that seem to populate our Troop.  (including many of the leaders)

It's nice to see a company that still enjoys connecting with it's customers in a personal way.  It’s also nice to find folks who appreciate what Scouting has done, and continues to do for this crazy country of ours.  As a meager token of his appreciation, my son has given me permission to share this photo with you.  From the flowstone, he’s about four hours into the cave, on his first set of batteries.  TerraLUX LED is still blindingly bright, and impervious to the umpteen whacks and wallops he put his head through, bouncing through that cave.  (yes, it’s true – real men don’t buy those fancy headlamps; they just duct-tape their Mini Maglight to their helmet!)

Best wishes to you and your company  - Jeff

Daily Camera article in Business Section, May 5, 2005

Anthony Catalano, owner of Boulder-based TerraLUX Inc., says the company's products, which involve electrical circuitry that makes light-emitting diodes even brighter and more energy efficient than traditional bulbs, have pushed it close to $1 million in sales in just one year.

By Kathleen Jones, For the Camera
May 5, 2005

With revenue approaching $1 million, high-tech startup TerraLUX Inc. recently moved from its founder's garage into office space at 1501 Lee Hill Road.

TerraLUX, which combines the Latin words for earth and light in its name, was founded in September 2003, but didn't really start marketing its light-emitting diode, or LED, upgrade kits for Maglites and other flashlights in a significant way until a year ago, said Anthony Catalano, company president and chief inventor.

Since then, nearly 50,000 units have been sold.

TerraLUX combines the LED bulb with a complex electrical circuit that greatly increases energy efficiency compared to traditional bulbs. TerraLUX's product lasts up to 100,000 hours, or 10 years of continuous lighting.

"We're growing at a fantastic rate," Catalano said. "We're approaching seven-figure revenue in less than 12 months."

But Catalano who was previously director of photovoltaics at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden said the real benefit is the intellectual property that helps put TerraLUX at the forefront of a coming change he likens to the personal computer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s.

Because the company was self-financed, Catalano said, it had to start out with a product it could sell right away. TerraLUX's success with direct current, or battery-powered, products such as flashlight upgrade kits is "giving us the luxury to develop some intellectual property that hopefully will be valuable not just for battery applications, but also (alternating current) applications," he said.

Alternating current, or AC, electricity is the kind generated by power stations for homes and businesses. Catalano said he sees a future for TerraLUX's concept competing against more traditional sources of light, including fluorescent lights and incandescent bulbs.

For home and business owners, "the ability to basically install a light bulb and never ever change it again is pretty compelling," he said, noting that the energy savings is an additional incentive.

Carl Kalin, vice president of marketing and sales for TerraLUX, said LED lighting for AC applications also will offer a number of new options. "Currently, lighting is sort of dumb," Kalin said. "It's either on or it's off. People put dimmers in the wall to try to change it. By comparison, with LED lighting it is possible to introduce flashing on and off, light in any hue of color a whole new realm of possibilities."

Catalano's idea started when he grew frustrated with some battery-powered Chinese lanterns his wife asked him to pick up at a Pottery Barn. The lanterns were relatively inexpensive, but they required four double "A" batteries to light them for about an hour, which Catalano felt was a ridiculously short time.

In seeking to make the lanterns more efficient, Catalano designed an electrical circuit to act as an intermediary between the batteries and the LED. In the process, he realized the wider applications of his device, although his initial excitement about the energy savings didn't turn out to be the primary draw in the marketplace. The market wasn't as enthusiastic about the energy efficiency as it was with brightness, Catalano said.

End-users predominantly people who use flashlights for work, including electricians, plumbers and heating, venting and air-conditioning, or HVAC, contractors seem to like the bright white light and the virtual indestructibility of the LED.

Bob Baber, an employee at Charles D. Jones, an HVAC wholesaler in Gunbarrel, said TerraLUX's LED upgrade kits for flashlights are popular items. "Our customers love them," Baber said. "People in our business use flashlights all the time. Even in the daytime, you go into crawl spaces and other dark places where you need good light. And when you drop your flashlight, these bulbs don't break like the regular ones do."

Other major customers of TerraLUX include Walt Disney Co.'s Disney World theme park, Boeing, and hunters and campers, who appreciate a reliable light that lasts more than an hour or two, Kalin said.

TerraLUX's LED upgrade kits for flashlights are sold at a few local retailers, including McGuckin Hardware, J.B. Saunders Co. and the Boulder Army Store.

Along with moving the business out of Catalano's garage in April, TerraLUX has grown to employ six people. The focus at the company's north Boulder headquarters remains on product design, testing and quality control, along with shipping and receiving.

While it may take five or 10 years for the infrastructure to develop to the point where LED lighting becomes commonly accepted in the AC market, Catalano said this is a good time to get started. There's "an extraordinary number of things" the company expects it can do with LEDs.

"We're selling these DC lights and it gives us some cash flow, it gives us real revenue, real profits, but what we're really doing is developing something that we're going to be able to carry forward into the future," he said. "And right now, we have customers that help us pay to do that."

Copyright 2005, The Daily Camera. All Rights Reserved.

US Army Pilot Rodney Pais had emailed TerraLUX as follows:

“I am a reconnaissance pilot flying here in Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. My unit, the 1st Military Intelligence Battalion flies combat sorties nearly every night here in the desert. This is what brings me to write this email.

I want to thank you for making an outstanding product. One of the pilots in my unit introduced me to the TLE-5 LED upgrade kit, along with the tail cap for Mini Maglites that you make. Incredible product!!! We fly 90% of our missions during the hours of darkness, and your flashlight enhancements have contributed directly to an increase in our performance and awareness while conducting pre-flight duties, performing tasks in the cockpit while in flight, and all the way through the post flight inspections we complete when the mission is accomplished. “

In addition to professional and consumer products, TerraLUX manufactures a wide variety of medical and industrial products that replace incandescent lighting with LED Light Engines for surgical and safety applications. The TerraLUX LED Light Engines are unique because of the combination of the world’s brightest LEDs plus the proprietary PowerPush™ regulation circuit, that gives unrivaled brightness and run time from the batteries