It was an odd career turn that brought Long Island, N.Y., native Matt Gelfand from a brokerage career on Wall Street to making road barriers in Franklin. A couple years after his 1992 graduation from Vanderbilt’s Owen Graduate School of Management, he conceived the notion that now is driving his Universal Safety Response to a likely five-fold increase in revenue this year.

All it took was news of a fatal accident at a railroad crossing to spark in Gelfand the idea of a barrier system that allows traffic to pass but can spring into action at a moment’s notice to help save lives. The system itself is a remarkable piece of engineering that has garnered the attention of Scientific American and The New York Times. It consists of a retractable net attached to four large pistons that when activated can stop a seven-and-a-half-ton truck going 50 mph in under a second with little or no injury to the driver. The net also can catch cars going approximately 30 mph without even breaking the headlights.

After years of research and development, working on the project in his spare time, Gelfand received a $650,000 grant from the state of New York to develop the energy-absorbing barrier. He and six others are listed on the patent, and they performed the first crash test in 2001.

Though originally marketed as a safety device, the Ground Retractable Automobile Barrier, or GRAB, has found the bulk of its business to date as a security measure. With installations at undisclosed military bases, petrochemical plants and national museums such as the Intrepid Sea Air Space Museum in New York, the GRAB has made a name for itself as a security barrier outperforming walls and bollards in crash tests. But Gelfand is hopeful that the transportation sector soon will begin to take notice and that GRABs will become regular features at railroad crossings and other intersections.

The basic cost of a single unit is roughly $60,000-$100,000, depending on the specifications. With roughly 100 units operating nationwide, Gelfand says he expects to see sales multiply by at least a factor of five over the next year.

That’s big money. Other MBAs might want to keep in mind that Wall Street isn’t the only place to make their fortunes.

Courtesy of USR Grab