The company that says ‘Yes’: ArgonFDS marks 35 years in business

 
From a small startup to a major supplier of displays, mission computers, tablets, workstations and peripherals, the company is poised for more growth
 
January 15, 2025
 
It’s not uncommon for niche defense contractors to pop up and then disappear after they discover serving government clientele isn’t as easy as they perhaps thought. Against this reality, ArgonFDS stands as a testament to staying power and precision engineering.

For 35 years, this “best kept secret” has been quietly delivering customized mission-critical displays, computers, tablets, workstations and peripherals to defense customers worldwide. Now, under the leadership of VP & General Manager Jaime Torres, the company is expanding its reach as part of Spectra Aerospace & Defense. Its current and future success rests on its ability to tailor specific solutions and manufacture them to exacting standards.

“I have as many displays as I have customers buying them — all bespoke, every one of them is unique,” says Torres, highlighting the company’s dedication to customization in an age of off-the-shelf solutions.

With an engineering team averaging 15 years of tenure and an impressive installed base for sea, air, and land-based operations, ArgonFDS has built its reputation on three core principles: innovative and tailored solutions, in-house design and manufacturing, and comprehensive after-sales support — including in-house service and repair. Torres says it’s a trio of attributes that has built the company’s sterling reputation while preparing it for growth in the coming years.

“The length of time in business makes a difference,” he says. “The technical knowledge we bring to the table, how we partner with customers to create exactly what they need, and our willingness to embrace seemingly impossible requests is our company’s signature. Customers know we’re not just salespeople offering stuff off the shelf.”

Since Argon Corporation was acquired by Spectra in 2021 and merged with FDS Avionics to create ArgonFDS, the company is now under one roof with CALCULEX — a provider of high-end flight recorders — and Galleon Embedded Computing. Torres sees plenty of potential as the three become more unified.

“We serve a lot of the same customers, and there are also potential opportunities to integrate our product lines,” he says. “Being part of this larger group is a real asset as we all work on the next generation of C5ISR solutions and expand our presence globally — particularly in Europe where emerging threats have EU countries building up their capabilities.”
 

Beginnings

In 1990, after a decade of experience in computer design with a defense contractor, Moshe Albaum wanted to strike out on his own. With strong contacts in the industry and a good relationship with his former employer, he quietly launched what would become Argon Corporation.

The first major win was in 1994, when Argon landed a pivotal U.S. Navy contract for an aircraft carrier control system. Competing against much larger contractors, the win showcased what would become ArgonFDS’s enduring hallmarks: innovative engineering, superior ruggedization and a willingness to tackle challenges others wouldn’t touch.

“We were sort of boutique, specializing in things no one else wanted to do,” Albaum reflects, describing the company’s early years. “We were always early adopters, using the most advanced processors and computing elements to create modular designs we could customize for each application.”

The other differentiator, he says, was a laser focus on optimizing size, weight, and power (SWaP).

This approach, combined with engineering excellence, would eventually help the small firm win contracts for some of the military’s most advanced systems, including the AWACS console displays. As Albaum says, in what would serve as the company’s founding philosophy: “We were the company that said ‘yes.’ To me, the bigger risk is not to take risk, because then someone else becomes the early adapter with all the associated opportunity.”

For its first decade in business, Argon continued working on those tough challenges for niche applications. One strong example, Albaum explains, was in the bezel that surrounds a display. For one customer looking for a better design, his team figured out a way to shrink the bezel and make other size reductions that enabled a bigger screen to fit in the same slot.

“The customer was amazed and very happy,” he recalls. “The ability to fit a larger screen into the same real estate gave us a big leg up on the competition.”

As demand for the company’s products continued to grow, Albaum knew it was time to find someone who could handle the business side and allow him to focus on the engineering. He found the perfect partner in Mike Forde.
 

The next phase

Forde had a busy career and was a VP of rugged displays at another defense contractor when Albaum approached him about partnering with him at Argon. With a background in engineering, marketing and product management, he’d be an ideal partner — even if it’d mean working for a much smaller company.

“But I could see the opportunity,” says Forde, now retired but still consulting with ArgonFDS. “The goal was to steer the engineering in the direction of products that would be suitable for higher-volume applications — not just one-off boutique solutions.”

Forde says he was impressed by the technical expertise of the Argon team and its innovative approaches to SWaP economics. He knew he could help find applications they simply didn’t know about.

“We also needed to make the company more ‘awardable,’” he says. “They were small and didn’t have a lot of business processes in place. And they needed more production capability.”

With a list of current customers jotted down by Albaum on a piece of paper, Forde set out to expand that base by finding more applications for which he knew Argon would be ideally suited. Also on his to-do list: standing up a bigger production facility and a quality certification process to guarantee everything they delivered was top quality.

Forde had a pretty good idea he could build and staff a facility near his base in Atlanta for a lot less than it’d cost at Argon’s HQ on Long Island. Plus, with Georgia Tech nearby, the facility would have a strong talent base to draw from. So, while Albaum and the engineering team remained in New York, Argon shifted manufacturing to Georgia in what turned out to be a highly profitable move.

“We were winning contracts with big primes like Lockheed Martin Canada, General Dynamics and Boeing, and that allowed us to finance the facility,” he says. “These types of customers have a lot of people looking at everything you do. You can have the best product in the world, but defense requires that you make them identical, at scale and, of course, top quality. Moshe agreed with me that the path to success meant dialing all of this in — to combine the best designs with superior manufacturing capabilities here in the U.S.”

It worked, so well in fact that the company never even had to borrow to get it done.

“No outside investor loans, no angel investors, we did it all ourselves with our own money,” Forde says. “There were times when I had to juggle money to make payroll, but it all worked out in the end.”

Smaller contracts led to bigger ones, with the company’s skill at supplying displays and other components for AWACS standing out as a major turning point.

“The AWACS contracts, they just really started to catapult us,” Forde says. “It’s such a visible and important platform in the U.S. Air Force, and it gives you serious credibility.”
 

The road ahead

ArgonFDS now has decades of creating high-quality products with thousands of installs and a track record of working closely with customers to provide what they need — not necessarily what they ask for.

“We don’t lead with the tech,” Torres says. “We lead with the solution, with what makes sense. And we work with our customers as a partner, as advisers who are in it for the long haul.”

Another level of collaboration occurs when ArgonFDS engineers work directly with those of the customer.

“I love it when that happens,” Torres says. “That’s when work really gets done.”

These kinds of customer relationships, alongside the innovative technology solutions, have ArgonFDS poised for its next phase.

“We want to expand on what we’re already doing while also growing our tablets and mission computers business,” he says. “We have a strong presence with naval and airborne applications, and we want to do more with land-based vehicles and operations.”

“It really is an exciting time for the company,” Torres says. “There’s so much opportunity out there, and I know we have the people, the technology and the processes to expand and serve a great many more customers and applications around the world.”