FREDERICTON - Over the past decade, magnetic resonance
imaging (MRI) has emerged as one of the most flexible and powerful diagnostic
techniques to assess bone and tissue damage.
Now, New Brunswick-based Green Imaging Technologies (GIT) is bringing MRI to oil
field exploration.
Co-founded by the husband-and-wife team of Jill and Derrick Green in November
2005, GIT has signed an agreement with the University of New Brunswick to
commercialize a technology that uses magnetic resonance to measure the flow of
fluids in rock.
GIT is developing computer hardware and software to test rock cores that yields
results in one day rather than in the two to three weeks that is now the
industry standard. This means oil exploration companies can make decisions
fatser more accurately than ever before.
The Greens are both 35-year-old engineers who were born and educated in New
Brunswick. Jill is a civil engineer specializing in water systems and Derrick
holds a joint PhD in electrical engineering and physics from UNB. He worked in
the lab where the technology was developed and under the supervision of renowned
MRI researcher Dr. Bruce Balcom.
"We knew Derrick was educating himself out of the job market in Canada," says
Jill Green, "It reached the point where our choices were Europe, Cleveland or
San Diego. So we pulled out a globe and chose Cleveland because it was closest
to home."
Starting in 2000, Derrick worked as a product developer of clinical MRI scanners
at Philips Medical Systems. Jill ran a county water utility. With the birth of
twins three years ago, they began to feel a strong pull back to the Maritimes.
So when Balcom called Derrick Green in the spring of 2005 to tell him about some
promising applications for his MRI technologies, Derrick and Jill were intrigued
by the opportunity to commercialize it.
Both Derrick and Jill Green come from a family of entrepreneurs. Derrick's
grandfather owned a construction firm that built many of the highways in Nova
Scotia. His father ran a building supply business in Fredericton, which he
recently sold to his employees.
Jill's father, Marc Schneider, is a UNB professor and inventor who developed a
method for creating polymerized wood that is being produced by a company in
Norway.
Drawing on Jill's business and communication skills, Jill and Derrick Green
developed a business plan while still in Cleveland. Jill then came back to
Fredericton for a week in October 2005 to meet potential investors.
"It was a whirlwind week looking at space and learning all the acronyms of the
regional development and funding agencies," says Jill. "But the best input I got
was when I sat down with a group of business leaders in the Fredericton area and
threw my ideas out there.
"We got a lot of positive feedback and contacts."
The GIT technology is based on more than a decade of basic materials research at
UNB. Not having to worry about the research and focus only on product
development has permitted the Greens to accelerate the MRI technology's time to
market.
"We grabbed hold of this because it was ready and the customers were
identifiable," says Jill.
By January 2006, the Greens moved back to Fredericton. They are now organizing
beta-trials with first customers in Houston and plan to have a commercial
product in the field within the next six months.
As for being located in New Brunswick, the Greens consulted their potential
customers and the consensus was it is more important to be near where the
technology is developed, as long as Derrick or Jill can get on a plane
occasionally.
GIT is developing more MRI technologies for the oil and gas sector, as well as
platforms for broader industrial applications.
But for now the focus is on launching their first product and demonstrating the
value of MRI to very conservative market.
Big Oil is notorious for preferring "tried and trusted" methods and resisting
new ones, even if they offer strong advantages.
But university scientists and MRI equipment manufacturers faced the same
daunting task with clinical physicians 20 years ago and succeeded in
transforming diagnostic medicine.