TraumaFX builds high-tech human and canine models to improve life-saving techniques

Sonoma County is renowned for making wine, beer and food products.

Manufacturing here involves so much more, though, from high-tech laboratories to small machine shops supporting an array of companies.

Below are profiles of two little-known manufacturers turning heads far beyond the county. One tapped into movie magic to help medics save lives on the battlefield. The other is credited with building an innovative machine for extracting key compounds from cannabis.

Dick Herman, president of the 101MFG manufacturing trade group, said the two companies demonstrate something key about local innovation: “The North Bay has still got it.”

Ron Howard once recalled visiting Industrial Light & Magic's warehouse in Marin County during the production of the 1980 blockbuster “The Empire Strikes Back.” The “Apollow 13” film director said he “felt absolutely like the kid who'd gotten into Santa's workshop at the North Pole.”

A similar sensation comes to mind when visiting the factory floor of TraumaFX in Petaluma.

There a visitor finds reminders of the glory days of ILM, which first gained recognition for old-school visual effects before computer-generated imagery. Overhead and along the walls of the North McDowell Boulevard facility hang the small-scale models of spaceships, jets and trains the George Lucas-founded company created for popular films such as “Terminator,” “Men in Black” and “Pearl Harbor.”

Beneath those relics from film history, workers are assembling a new generation of models: high-tech human and canine “simulators” to help military medics and others learn how to treat potentially deadly wounds.

There is a connection between the old and new creations. Some who once labored in Industrial Light's creatures workshop now use the same creative skills to fashion simulators that can breathe, bleed and give a pulse.

Over the years, about a dozen of Industrial light's former artists and technicians have joined the company that moved to Petaluma this spring from Marin County.

“That movie realism is brought to the training that saves lives,” TraumaFX Vice President Carolyn Hollander said.

The anatomically correct human simulators, some with severed limbs or bullet wounds, allow medics, police officers and others to practice such live-saving techniques as applying tourniquets, preventing collapsed lungs and keeping breathing passages open.

The canine model comes complete with soft paws, realistic fur and pointed teeth.

“It breathes. It barks. It responds to your intervention,” Hollander said.

TraumaFX is owned by Tampa-based Kforce, a publicly traded company specializing in staffing services. The company also has a government solutions division to which the simulator business belongs. Kforce's annual revenues total $1.4 billion.

In 2008, Kforce acquired dNovus RDI, a small research firm that a few years earlier had conducted a study for the U.S. Army. The inquiry sought to pinpoint how to better train medics on treating wounds caused by the relatively recent threat of roadside bombs known as improvised explosive devices, or IEDs.

The researchers concluded the existing training mannequins used by the military weren't adequate to prepare medics for the real-life horrors of treating the wounded on the battlefield, Hollander said. The Army responded by asking dNovus RDI to help build a new generation of models.

The company's researchers eventually turned to the film industry as a source for creating realistic special effects. That led them to contact Industrial Light and its creatures workshop. The timing was good, because computer-generated imagery technology had reduced the need for actual models and miniatures, so many of the artists and technicians were willing to switch to building training models that could help save lives. That marked the beginning of TraumaFX.

“All these modelers have reinvented themselves,” Hollander said.

The cost of the canine simulator starts at about $25,000. The most basic human trainer costs about $10,000 but high-tech models can easily approach $80,000.

The company has built about 2,500 of the various models in the last decade, Hollander said.

The business outgrew its former building in San Rafael. Relocating to Petaluma provided more space and allowed for shorter commutes for many workers who already were living in Sonoma County, Hollander said. The company has 48 employees and is seeking four more.

Its facility includes virtually everything needed to create the simulators, including a mold-making department and tools such as a 3D printer and a computer numerical control, or CNC machining system.

During a recent tour, workers demonstrated many of models' features. An operator with a remote- control speeded up and slowed down the breathing rate on a canine simulator - with lungs that expanded and emptied.

Another operator showed how a human model's legs could powerfully thrash to simulate the reaction of a wounded and downed soldier.

In another area, a worker ran tests on a system allowing a simulator's “vital signs” to be recorded on a standard patient monitor in order to make for more realistic training.

The company's customers extend beyond the military and first responders. Veterinary schools have bought the canine models, Hollander said.

One law enforcement agency that bought the human simulator is the Alameda County Sheriff's Office.

“It's actually very realistic,” said Deputy Sean Poole, member of one of the department's tactical teams. Among other things, the model enables deputies to learn how to seal chest wounds to prevent collapsed lungs.

“All our tactical guys have been trained on our simulators,” said Sgt. Ray Kelly, a department spokesman. And many deputies and police officers around the Bay Area have been trained how to apply a new generation of tourniquets.

Kelly suggested the deputies are becoming attached to the simulator.

“We named ours ‘Bruce,'” he said.

You can reach Staff Writer Robert Digitale at 707-521-5285 or robert.digitale@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @rdigit.