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Long road leads to company's headquarters

Think high tech. Now think even higher tech. That's the kind of technology that Universal Microwave is working on in Hernando County.

By MICHAEL KRUSE
Published March 23, 2007

RIDGE MANOR WEST - Pat Crowley of the Greater Hernando County Chamber of Commerce showed up Wednesday morning with her big wooden scissors, and that meant what it always means: It was time to shake some hands, slap some backs and cut a long red ribbon.

Local bigwigs came to Hernando's rural east end to welcome Universal Microwave Corp. UMC moved up from Odessa in Pasco County to the Cortez Crossing business park near the intersection of State Road 50 and Interstate 75. The growing company is about 10 years old, has approximately 80 employees and makes high-tech microchips and circuit boards for wireless systems used by big-name companies all over the world.

UMC's arrival is important for two reasons:

1. It brings business to the county that isn't just more rooftops and retail.

2. It brings business to a part of the county that's typically more quiet than the west side bustle and the Suncoast Parkway corridor.

"Things are happening out here," Hernando County Office of Business Development director Mike McHugh said Wednesday.

"All I can say is, 'We're finally here,' " UMC president David Lyle told the people who had gathered in front of his new 20,000-square-foot facility. "It's been a long road."

The road at Cortez Crossing is called Nature Coast Boulevard. At one point, though, and not all that long ago, some were calling it the road to nowhere.

The county got a federal grant in 2000 for $750,000 to develop the site. But tenants were needed to get that cash. HiTek Truss was the first. A pool company backed out in 2002. A surge suppression company backed out in 2004.

But that's also right about the time McHugh started talking to Lyle and UMC. And the company broke ground in 2005.

UMC started small in 1997. Real small. Lyle started it with his wife and his brother in his garage in New Port Richey.

"We boot-strapped the whole thing," he said Wednesday.

They moved to a 5,000-square-foot building in Odessa.

Then they had to lease a second 10,000-square-foot building.

Finally, they needed even more space, and they found it here. Since 2001, according to Lyle, business has doubled every year. They moved to Hernando for more space, and because of the more central location between Tampa, Orlando and Ocala.

UMC doesn't make the high-tech chips for your phone. They make the higher-tech chips in the cell tower that make your phone work as well as it does. Their devices are also used in satellite, aerospace, point-to-point radio and high-speed Internet systems - anything, Lyle said, that has to do with "the purity of data transfer."

"We make the Lamborghini of wireless chips," he said.

Their products are used by companies like Motorola, Ericsson, Raytheon and about 300 others.

No wonder many of the Hernando A-listers made it out to Cortez Crossing for the ribbon-cutting. County Administrator Gary Kuhl was on hand. So were County Commission Chairman Jeff Stabins, other commissioners and Brooksville Coldwell Banker broker Gary Schraut.

"Welcome to Hernando County," Commissioner Diane Rowden said to Lyle. "I will think about you every time I answer my phone."

"What an exciting day," said Crowley, the executive director of the chamber of commerce. "I think we're ready to cut the ribbon."

The crowd gathered in front of the main door of the new building. Lyle used both his hands to hold up the scissors and snipped.

Michael Kruse can be reached at mkruse@sptimes.com or 352 848-1434.

[Last modified March 22, 2007, 22:42:33]