The Daily Record (Baltimore, MD)
February 18, 2005 Friday
Aris Mardirossian: Maryland’s modern-day Edison
Jen DeGregorio
Aris Mardirossian relies on divine inspiration to rouse him from his
nightly sleep and provide answers to the world’s many problems.
>From counter everything from cell-phone theft to hijacked planes to
landmine explosions that kill innocents, Mardirossian has invented
devices — usually at 2 a.m. — that might put an end to it all. When
he is not managing his family’s real estate business or contributing
to various community organizations, the 54-year-old engineer from
Montgomery County markets his late-night inventions as president of
Technology Patent LLC in Gaithersburg, a business founded on his
innovations.
“One wonderful thing about the system is if you categorize something
as a problem, that problem always has a solution,” Mardirossian said.
“The only question is to come up with that solution. It’s that
simple.”
Mardirossian holds about 30 patents, all of which are solutions to
problems he has encountered on his daily adventures as a businessman
and community activist, which put him in contact with people from a
gamut of professions with a gamut of problems.
Some of his patents include technologies for an electronic traffic
monitoring and ticketing system, a white blood-cell sized chip that
can be inserted into the body to monitor vital signs, and an
alternative fuel-cell system for use in emergency power outages.
The federal government is researching his patent for landmines, which
would enable the military to switch them on and off from a remote
location, a control that would end injury caused by landmines left in
battlefields after war.
Boeing is researching his antiterrorism device that would send
airplanes into automatic-landing mode if they flew too near “danger
zones” marked on a computer map.
“He’s got a driving force behind him to realize what might be
possible,” said Bill Fourney, chairman of the aeronautical
engineering department of the University of Maryland, College Park
and Mardirossian’s former professor. “Many of us sit around and think
about what would be good to do, but he’s taken the chance of putting
his ideas down on paper and submitting them and getting the patents.”
Fourney attributes Mardirossian’s success to the same perseverance
and hard work he showed as an engineering student at the University
of Maryland, where he obtained his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in
1974 and 1975, respectively.
But Mardirossian says his victories in the patent world have all been
due to “luck.”
“I don’t think about this problem or how I’m going to solve it,” said
Mardirossian, who immigrated to the United States from Armenia in
1964. “It goes in my head and stays there for a couple of months, and
one day I’ll wake up at 2 in the morning ” get up, go downstairs and
start writing. By the morning it’s all finished.”
That inspiration, and what Mardirossian refers to as “easy” problem
solving, also cleared the path to his successful business career.
While managing a family real-estate venture during the early 1980s,
Mardirossian was frazzled when a 7-Eleven convenience store backed
out of its agreement to move into his building in Gaithersburg.
Instead of searching for another store to fill the hole, Mardirossian
simply invented his own — the 6-Twelve Convenient Mart, which drew a
copyright-infringement lawsuit from 7-Eleven that lost on antitrust
grounds.
Mardirossian was president of 6-Twelve from 1984 to 1991, when he
realized that he “was not cut out for management” and turned the
business over to family members.
In 1988, Mardirossian noticed another problem: radon gas. At that
time, people in the Washington area were concerned about radon leaks.
Mardirossian responded by starting a business providing radon testing
to local schools and homes.
Again, Mardirossian served as president of the company until 1996,
when he “got bored,” sold it and moved to his latest venture —
patents.
“I have a very short attention span,” Mardirossian said.
Those who know him, though, would disagree, professing their
admiration for Mardirossian’s careful attention to his various
philanthropic projects.
“He’s a product of the American dream and because of that he wants to
give back to the community,” said Brian Gragnolati, president and
chief executive of Suburban Hospital Healthcare System in Bethesda,
where Mardirossian serves as a volunteer board member.
“As a board member he always seems to ask the right question and cut
to the chase,” Gragnolati said. “He constantly reminds us about our
purpose, which is to care for patients.”
Mardirossian also started a scholarship endowment program for
financially challenged mechanical engineering students at the
University of Maryland, and he is active in politics, supporting
candidates whose ideals are similar to his own.
“He’s very bipartisan,” said Sen. Patrick J. Hogan, D-Montgomery
County. “He gets involved in politics and backs people he thinks are
doing the right thing, Democrats, Republicans.”
“He’s been active in so many fronts,” Hogan said. “We’re very lucky
to have him in Montgomery.”