A series of moments in Kent Murphy's (engineering science and mechanics '86; M.S. electrical engineering '89; Ph.D. electrical engineering '92) life brought him where he is today--an accident that turned into an invention, a simple conversation that convinced him to go back to college, even a moth lighting on a sign...

Kent Murphy in front of his company's logo and namesake, the luna moth.

Fiber and Sensor Technologies--as Murphy's company was formerly known--was entering a new phase, becoming more than a research and development company and concentrating on commercialization of products. A new name was in order. Watching television one day, Murphy and his son saw a special on the luna moth. When one landed on the company's front door a few days later, he decided on the spot to name the company after it.

Murphy's choice of "Luna Innovations" for his company's name shows there is no such thing as coincidence. Actias luna, the luna moth, is so sensitive it can detect a single molecule of its mate's pheromone. Luna Innovations' strain gauge, a highly sensitive and sophisticated fiber-optic sensor patented at Virginia Tech when Murphy was still a graduate student, can measure the diameter of an atom's worth of displacement. It's used in aircraft to detect corrosion and structural fatigue and is also used in the Sistine Chapel to protect priceless fresco paintings, which can be damaged by changes in temperature and humidity. The company's namesake, a winged creature, also makes sense in relation to the work Murphy's company is doing with Northrup Grumman on fiber-optic smart wing technology. Luna's pressure sensor allows for airplane wings to change shape to accommodate flying conditions. Technology is catching up to nature and learning to react to its environment almost instinctually.

Fiber optics didn't always seem such a promising field, however. "At the SPIE [Society of Photonics Instrumentation Engineers] smart structures materials fiber optics conference about 10 years ago, an older gentleman who'd been in the field for many years said, 'Fiber optics is a promising field and likely to stay that way.' And I thought, yeesh, you know, we can make it real," says Murphy. Luna's strain gauge proved the potential of fiber optics and became a benchmark product. That same conferencenow much more oriented toward applications and productsgave Luna a Product of the Year award in 2000.

A degree of difference

Based on his confident attitude at the conference and all his eventual successes, one would never guess that Murphy didn't always dream so big. In fact, he dropped out of community college early on due to a lack of self-motivation. He also didn't always dream very realistically. "I had this total misconception of how the world worked," he says. "I thought I'd work my way up from a gravel-shoveling position to president of the asphalt plant." Even at his position with ITT Electro-Optical Products Division in Roanoke, Va., where he initially worked as a janitor and then as a lab technician, he didn't move forward very quickly. "I was working very hard and had some inventions and patents, but the engineers fresh out of college, with no background in fiber optics, would come in with a bigger salary than me and I'd train them for a few months. They would move to their cubicle making twice what I did because I didn't have a degree." So after several years with ITT, he finally went back to college.

What changed his mind about pursuing that all-important piece of paper? While emptying an engineer's trash one day at ITT, the engineer asked him why in the world he was doing that job. That simple question struck a chord in him. The encouragement of the engineers at ITT and then later the professors at Tech proved invaluable to changing Murphy's mind. "Someone once said to me, 'One class never changed anyone's life,' to which I responded, 'Are you kidding? One conversation can.'"

For Murphy, who says he'd always had problems doing things on his own, it was a hard step. "If you say to someone you're working alongside, 'I'm going to be the president of this company someday,' the most likely response will be laughter. If you go up to the president and say that, they'll sit down and discuss it with you." He dropped out of college, though, twice more before finally making it through.

Not bad for someone now working on perhaps one of the most exciting discoveries in science today. Luna's most recent work with fullerenes, or buckyballs, a kind of carbon cage or hollow molecule of carbon discovered in 1985, could have almost limitless possibilities for medical diagnoses and treatment. Little use had been found for the buckyball until Tech chemistry professor Harry Dorn and Steven Stevenson (M.S. chemistry '92; Ph.D. '95) discovered a way to put materials inside it--some of which might normally be toxic--so that the body only sees the harmless carbon cage. The buckyball could then become a delivery system for cancer or AIDS drugs, a diagnostic tool, or a way to improve MRI imaging technology.

Looking out for the future

Three spin-off companies later, Luna's success has positioned the company as second only to General Motors in funding research at Tech--a position Luna has held for five consecutive years, having given the university a total of $15 million. Funding research is one way to encourage a growth of future knowledge. Another way is to offer advice from a learned perspective.

Murphy's advice? To avoid the dreaded "toilet paper roll syndrome," which, he explains, is when "you're looking tunnel-visioned at the world and at your work, like you're holding a roll of toilet paper up to your eye, you're going to miss the solution that might pop up just out of your field of vision." In support of this philosophy, Murphy claims that many of his patents have come from dreams. Even Luna's strain gauge was an accident. While conducting research, Murphy turned off a machine and, out of the corner of his eye, saw a squiggle that he investigated further. That little screen blip turned out to be integral to developing the gauge.

The luna moth, with an eyespot on all four wings, becomes an even more appropriate symbol for Luna Innovations, a company run by a man who keeps his eyes wide open, waiting and watching for the next lucky coincidence.