In 2000, an LSU engineering professor named Kevin Kelly got an idea – to build compact, efficient heat exchangers that would help engines perform better. Today Kevin's company, Mezzo, is the world's leading company in micro tube heat exchanger technology. As Kevin tells Stephanie, "It's not difficult to be number one if you're the only one doing it."
Mezzo's ground-breaking, game-changing technology is gradually finding applications across industries from aerospace to oil and gas, and in the critically demanding world of high performance auto racing. It’s not the kind of technology you think of when you think of Louisiana, which is what makes Kevin Kelly and Mezzo's story such a great one.
CAP Technologies is another impressive Baton Rouge tech company you may never have heard of. The company is providing an invaluable service to big industry and to the environment – it has created an environmentally friendly way of cleaning and coating metals, using electricity and benign electrolytes instead of harsh acids.
CAP Technologies' founder and President Eddie Daigle charts the rise of his company from its fascinating genesis during the 6 years he spent working with Russian scientists in what was then the Soviet Union.
As surprising as it might be that Baton Rouge is the home of world leaders in engine and metal performance, you may be equally surprised to discover that we're also innovators in human performance, thanks to Adrian Cornish, Nathan Roy, and their startup company Apex Resistance and Conditioning.
Apex co-founder Nathan tells Stephanie about the company's revolutionary wearable gym: a workout suit that uses the same kind of all-over resistance you encounter in water, on dry land to increase effectiveness of a workout by up to 100% for some muscle groups. And that's not just a wild claim, that's the result of year's study by the LSU Kineseology department.
Photos on this page taken at Mansur's on the Boulevard by Katie Barnett.