Mel Torrie ’99MS thought he was hallucinating when he spotted the empty wheelchair whirring down the hallway of the College of Engineering lab building. He chased it down the hall and around the corner to the Center for Self-Organizing and Intelligent Systems in the electrical and computer engineering department. One conversation with the professor in charge, who told him about their robotics research for the disabled community and military security, and he knew he was headed down the right career track. Equally enamored with software, mechanical and electrical engineering, he would no longer have to specialize in only one.

For the next three years Torrie got reams of research and development experience as a graduate student, then as a manager of student employees. His software program for a prototype for a John Deere robotic tractor had patent potential, and in 2000, when the company decided to contract for the manufacturing rights, Torrie was launched into business with two fellow USU graduates; at age 30 he became president of his own company.

He entertained few doubts of success. He grew up on a farm in Alberta, Canada, the eldest of seven sons saddled with tractor duty— “driving in circles 18 hours a day.” “Our company motto,” Torrie says, “is eliminating the dull and dangerous redundant tasks so that you can do something that exercises your brain. You were created for something else besides driving from Point A to Point B your entire life.”

His company in Wellsville, Autonomous Solutions, Inc., has developed robotic vehicles that test tires for Goodyear without endangering the lives of human test drivers, that bulldoze earth and haul ore for open-pit copper mines in Arizona, Chile, Peru and Africa and that “volunteer” for F-15 practice bombing run practice during combat training exercises. Satisfied with the realism, the military now wants a disposable version that is cheap enough to sacrifice (i.e., blow up).

“So many people want to work for us we have to fight them off with a big stick,” says Torrie. Ninety percent of his 60 employees are either former students or graduate students. USU computing science professor Nick Flann is a shareholder. His artificial intelligence programming expertise has reduced fuel consumption and collisions.

Torrie feels blessed to be working in a field that never bores, and he enjoys spreading some of the wealth to the less fortunate. When Justin Wade Gunnell, the husband of his accountant, died in a USU van accident with eight other students and their ag tech instructor, he established a foundation in Justin’s name. The non-profit foundation is helping to raise money for a memorial scholarship fund for the decimated department, and donating its engineering services to charities in this country and overseas.

In September the company won a $1-million grant to compete in the defense department’s Grand Challenge in November 2007. Their software- and laser-sensor-piloted, GPS-navigated entry will have to negotiate 60 miles of simulated urban mayhem in six hours at the posted 35 mile-per-hour speed limit. This bumper car race will pit Wellsville, Utah’s Mighty Mouse against “the monster corporations of the world.” The chance to beat the likes of Porsche, Lockheed Martin and Boeing is beside the point; the press release was published in major newspapers and scientific magazines around the world. “We’re getting more hits on our web site in one day than in the previous six years of being in business,” says Torrie.

The location will be kept a secret so none of the contestants can cheat and reprogram their entry in the split-second decision making of merging into a one-way, three-lane traffic circle. “There are bound to be some good crashes,” Torrie says. “They’ll have a qualifying round to make certain we keep it clean and act responsibly.” When you’ve given birth to a million-dollar baby, it isn’t funny to watch your investment mangle itself in a wreck no matter how useful that exercise might be to a military that wants to automate its deadliest jobs.-Jane Koerner