By SHAWN PIATEK
TRIBUNE-DEMOCRAT BUSINESS WRITER
spiatek@tribdem.com

SOMERSET - Andy Holland spent most of his career working in the nuclear industry, but never gave much thought to how he could fight cancer. It wasn't until his brother-in-law was diagnosed with the disease that the nuclear engineer began to question the means by which treatment was delivered. The experience prompted Holland , who moved to Somerset from Baltimore , to find an improved treatment-planning process. With that in mind, he struck out with a friend to form Applied Computation Technologies in Somerset in 2003.

Now, the company, on the verge of a product rollout, is changing its surroundings. It is moving from Somerset to the Windber Research Institute next month. Before the business began, Holland believed he was onto an innovation that could revolutionize the cancer-treatment process. But he faced a major hurdle - he's an engineer, not a businessman. "I knew I needed a business partner because I didn't know much about managing a business," Holland said. "That's when I found Jay."

Jay is Jay McClatchey, a friend Holland became acquainted with through their church who just happened to have 14 years of business-management experience on his resume. McClatchey did market research for Holland 's proposal and quickly jumped on board, helping Holland found ACT. "I was out of work in 2002, and I was looking for a way to stay here," said McClatchey, a resident of Indian Lake and a Ligonier native. "I started working as an information technologies consultant, but what I really wanted to do was create a business, and that's when I met Andy. "After doing a little bit of market research, I could see something was definitely there. It sort of sucked us both in, and now here we are."

ACT is poised to take some big steps during the next year, including the much anticipated release of its flagship product, ProACTive™. ProACTive™ is a software application used to refine dosage calculations during the cancer-treatment process. In preliminary testing, it has proven to provide the combination of speed and accuracy that similar software has not. "The future outlook is tremendous," Holland said. "Our technology is going to enable adaptive image-guided radiotherapy technologies to be implemented. "We'll be selling into the market as it now exists. But it's in the next-generation market where the big payoff will be.”

Holland and McClatchey have several reasons for the Windber move. The Windber Research Institute (WRI) is part of a Keystone Innovation Zone, which will afford ACT dual tax benefits. In addition, the prospects of collaborating with other high-tech and biotechnology professionals at WRI is exciting. Holland and McClatchey have invested a great deal of personal capital into the company to get it off the ground. But to get to this point, they needed outside aid. That's where Idea Foundry of Pittsburgh stepped in with a capital investment.

Mike Matesic, Idea Foundry managing partner, said the technology was intriguing, but what sold his company on ACT was the people standing behind it. "A lot of companies we look at may have an interesting technology that's cool. But without dedicated, competent folks, cool technology won't get too far," Matesic said. "One of the first things we looked at was Jay and Andy. They have the passion, drive and initiative and they have really paid the sacrifice to make a successful entrepreneurial effort. "In addition, we found not only is this technology in need, but it meets a growing need nationally and internationally such that it could make a significant impact in cancer treatment.

"That is the higher goal, but it doesn't pay the bills. So we also look at the path of cash. "The market for the technology is not limited to life sciences," he said. "But looking specifically at the life-sciences market, we felt very confident it would be a product making significant revenue down the road." Holland and McClatchey hope to hire between 20 and 30 employees during the next 3 to 5 years. They said the jobs will pay in the mid-$60,000 range - the average wage for biotechnologists in Pennsylvania . The partners expect that recruiting won't be an easy task. But they also believe they won't have to extend their efforts too far from home to find plenty of innovative minds. "It's certainly not going to be easy to attract and bring in talent from outside the region," Holland said. "On the other hand, we have some extremely bright kids coming out of the schools in this area. "Hopefully we'll be able to get a few of them to stay home."