Twelve years ago, Stefan Duma, a Virginia Tech engineering professor, left a U.S. military conference in Puerto Rico with an idea to better understand and treat the head injuries sustained by college football players.
On that spring day in 2003, Duma had listened to a presentation on the use of electronic impact sensors from Rick Greenwald, the founder of a New Hampshire-based engineering company called Simbex. Greenwald’s pitch was to embed sensors that the company produced in the helmets of soldiers. He argued that the sensor technology could help the Army to learn more about the head injuries suffered by its service men and women in combat.