Not a company to hide its solar-powered light under a bushel, Carmanah Technologies Corp. believes in shouting its own praises to the rooftops.

And why not? A high-voltage marketing attack is one reason why the Victoria-based tech outfit, which runs an office in Vancouver and a small manufacturing plant in Calgary, tripled its profit in the third quarter.

"This company oozes sales and marketing strength," laughed Praveen Varshney, one of Carmanah's directors. Even the mighty New York Times has heard the message, recently including Carmanah (TSXV:CMH) on an extremely short list of commercially successful manufacturers of solar-powered products.

But it wasn't always so. Sometime in 2000, physicist and company founder David Green realized he needed a chief executive able to bring muscular sales chops to the publicly traded manufacturer of solar-powered light-emitting diodes, known as LEDs.

Adrian Lam, Business Edge
Carmanah Technologies CEO Art Aylesworth shows off his company’s solar-powered navigational aids.

To that end, he recruited current CEO Art Aylesworth, originally from Calgary.

As the scientific brains of the operation, Green had initially married solar technology with LEDs - solid-state bulbs that require minuscule amounts of electricity - to create a super-efficient marine light. It won't burn out, stands up to the hardest knocks of ocean-going weather systems and costs next to nothing to operate.

Aylesworth's contribution has been to help sell it, while significantly broadening the target market for Carmanah products. Based on record third-quarter revenues of $4.6 million, the collaborators are on track to light up the skies, while pleasing their shareholders no end.

When Aylesworth came aboard, one of his chores was to help Green (now chair of Carmanah's board of directors) successfully close prolonged negotiations with the U.S. Coast Guard (USSG). It was a long, hard slog but the rewards made it well worth the effort.

"Selling the Coast Guard was a painfully slow process," Aylesworth admitted. "It's heavily regulated and we ran into doubting Thomases all down the line . . . they put us through hoop after hoop.”

Mission accomplished, however. Today, the USCG is Carmanah's biggest customer. Meanwhile, the Canadian, British and Chilean navies have since followed the Americans' lead, adding Carmanah's durable dome-shaped lights to their fleets. They're used as navigational lights, floating marine lanterns, and to mark out landing strips and maritime security zones.

Perhaps even more importantly, Carmanah management has been able to adapt the patented process originally developed by Green to a seemingly limitless variety of new applications. These include LEDs designed for use on airplane landing strips, highways, railroads and even home landscaping.

Another good example: Aylesworth says that civic governments have been particularly receptive to Carmanah's LED-illuminated transit shelters and bus stops.

"(Among our vertical markets) it's the lowest-hanging fruit," Aylesworth said, because the lights are cheap and easy to install and because local politicians are attracted to Carmanah's green-as-grass technology.

Aylesworth is convinced that transit-related products have the potential to develop into Carmanah's hottest sellers, perhaps as early as December of next year.

As we speak, the company's solar LEDs are currently in use at 250 London bus shelters and another 200 bus stops, on a trial basis.

Carmanah's sales team is preparing a tender in hopes of landing a contract to supply the U.K. metropolis with LEDs for an additional 7,000 transit stops.

"We'll have to compete for this one," Aylesworth cautioned. "Our competitors will be trying to convince London they're better at it than we are, so it's game on.”

And street lighting? To this point, solar-fired LEDs aren't bright enough to cut through the murk of a darkened city thoroughfare. But wait for it.

"We don't think it's quite there yet, but it's not far away," Aylesworth agreed. "Are we working on a street light at this moment? No. Are we working on a technology we could transfer over in a blink? Yes.”

Meanwhile, a wholly owned subsidiary known as Carmanah Signs Inc. represents one more light at the tunnel's end. Formerly AVVA Light Corp., the Calgary-based manufacturer of edge-lit LED signs was acquired in October, 2003, to give its parent a wedge into ever more lucrative markets.

"This just seemed like it supported our transit business and helped accelerate our entry into the roadway business," explained Aylesworth, who feels that highway illumination is a potential gold mine, right up Carmanah's alley.

On Nov. 30, Carmanah's subsidiary won a $650,000 contract to supply illuminated signs to a "large Canadian retailer" and the CEO says the Calgary plant can't spit out products fast enough to keep pace with demand.

No wonder Aylesworth believes Carmanah's future is as bright as it gets.

Web watch: www.carmanah.com (Tom Keyser can be reached at tomk@businessedge.ca)