Secrets of the fastest-growing techs

No. 24 on Business 2.0's list of the 100 fastest-growing technology companies

Four years ago, American Science & Engineering was losing money. But under CEO Anthony Fabiano, it's seen profits soar by helping to equip government agencies from the TSA to the Department of Defense with their highly accurate backscatter X-ray screening products. Next up: detecting dirty bombs in cargo containers.

On turning around a failing company:Four years ago, I came in as part of a new management team to turn around the business. 9/11 had already come and gone, and we were not engaged in the business of aviation scanning. In other words, we missed the bus. We were a company with technology looking for markets, but we had no sales and marketing capabilities and no strategic plan. We were more of a think tank, a build-a-prototype sort of place. We spent three years building up our sales and marketing, put in place a Toyota-style industrial production facility, and we've been on a sprint to add new products.

On building products to make the country secure: The Z-Backscatter Van is our signature product. Unlike conventional X-ray systems, it works at lower levels of energy and produces backscatter X-rays that can detect explosives, drugs, contraband, and even illegal aliens. We've sold over 250 of these. We've also taken that technology and introduced it into other products like the Z-Backscatter Portal, which looks like a metal detector but ten times as a big, so a car or a truck can drive through. Those are designed to be used by customs agencies at border crossings, in war zones, and even at seaports to look for contraband or explosives.

On future opportunities: As you read in the news, aviation checkpoints need better technology - basically, a person could carry explosives on a plane without anyone blinking an eye. It's a tremendous opportunity for our technology, and as the bad guys get smarter, we're thinking three steps ahead of them. With all the concerns about Iraq, North Korea and Sudan, global security issues are not going away. One of the highest priorities is to detect improvised explosive devices. We're working vigorously in that area.