Westar Aerospace announced its acquisition of SimAuthor today. The price was $8 million in cash.
SimAuthor was a Boulder software company specializing in flight-data visualization and simulation. Its software turned recorded aircraft data into visual replays used for analysis, safety, training, and other aviation work. Westar was part of the wider QinetiQ organization.
I had joined SimAuthor in 2004. By the time of the acquisition, I was responsible for the network and systems supporting an office of about sixty people. The environment included Windows and Linux servers, databases, employee workstations, engineering labs, production services, firewalls, VPN access, and security systems.
One of my largest projects was moving the data center in-house. That required rebuilding the network topology and connecting production services, remote access, monitoring, security, and recovery into the new setup. The purpose was to improve availability and reduce costs.
The acquisition announcement describes the business from the buyer's perspective. It identifies the product, location, customers, and transaction. My work remained closer to the office systems. Engineers still needed the labs. Employees still needed authentication. The production services and VPN still had to be available after the announcement.
The exact completion date of every infrastructure project is not preserved in the public record. My period resume places the network, security, and data-center work within the 2004 to 2006 role, but it does not tie each project to March 27.
The acquisition is still an important date because it gives the SimAuthor work a clear company milestone. A small Colorado aviation-software business had built something another aerospace company wanted to own. I had spent the previous two years building and operating the technical environment behind it.
The public announcement closed the deal. Inside the Boulder office, the systems work continued for the employees and customers already using it.