Lotek Wireless Wins 2002 Canada Export Award

Wildlife tracking company tops the list of Canadian high-tech innovators

October 8, 2002 - Vancouver, B.C.:
Lotek Wireless Inc. has been awarded the 2002 Canada Export Award for Innovation and Technology Achievement by the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. International Trade Minister Pierre S. Pettigrew presented the prestigious award to Lotek CEO Jim Lotimer at the Annual Convention of the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters in Vancouver last night. The Hon. Kelvin Parsons, Minister of Industry, Trade and Rural Development for Newfoundland, was also on hand to congratulate Lotek at the awards ceremony. Lotek has manufacturing plants in St. John's, Newfoundland as well as in Newmarket, Ontario.

Founded in 1984, Lotek Wireless designs and manufactures wireless biotelemetry systems used by scientists to gather detailed information about the movements and physiology of fish and wildlife in their natural habitats. Many of the creatures monitored are threatened or endangered species.

"Our craft is technology, but our passion is the environment," said Mr. Lotimer. "Lotek systems are ultimately designed to help us better understand and care for our planet. To receive an award of this stature is a tribute to the dedication and perseverance of all our employees."

The company's tracking devices are now in use in over 35 countries - "on every continent and in every ocean," as Lotimer puts it. Exports represent over 90% of the Canadian company's annual revenues.

Lotek systems are used for a wide variety of environmental and economic reasons, from protecting endangered elephants in Africa to monitoring the safe passage of salmon through hydroelectric dams on the Columbia River. Examples of species being tracked with Lotek devices include salmon, sturgeon, tuna, turtles, whales, seals, crabs, penguins, moose, caribou, wolves and elephants.

Keith Stoodley, Lotek's Oceans Director, says that winning the 2002 Canada Export Award is a significant recognition of Lotek's commitment to designing innovative technology.

"12 to 15% of our revenue goes back into research and development each year," he says. "This allows us to keep meeting our scientific partners' needs for increasingly unobtrusive ways to follow smaller and smaller creatures deeper and deeper into the wild."

To meet those demands, Lotek offers a wide array of radio, acoustic, data storage and satellite tracking devices, some of which are used in combination to provide unique solutions to the challenges of tracking animals in difficult habitats.

Many of Lotek's innovations have resulted from efforts to overcome traditional tracking limitations. For example, the company's digitally encoded radio tags remove the previous "one animal per frequency" barrier, allowing today's researchers to detect over 200 unique signals on a single radio frequency. Similarly, the company's combined acoustic-radio tags allow the continuous, single-device tracking of a fish through both fresh and salt water habitats for the first time.

"We've been able to contribute volumes of new knowledge to science about dozens of species occupying space on this earth, and in our rivers, seas and oceans," Mr. Lotimer says. "At the same time, we're helping governments, businesses, and public utilities to better manage their resources and co-exist with nature.

"It's very rewarding work, with constant new incentives to improve upon what we do."

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