Springs entrepreneur in the running for national small-business award

Growing up in New York City’s East Harlem, Antonio Colón never expected to live to see his 21st birthday.
Colón made it to his 21st birthday, completed a career in the Air Force, ran a successful real estate business and, after the Sept. 11 attacks, started Combat Training Solutions, which provides equipment that simulates improvised explosive device blasts to train troops.

The 6-year-old company, housed at the Colorado Springs Technology Incubator, employs 14 and is expected to generate $7 million in revenue this year, a record of growth that helped make Colón Colorado’s Small Business Person of the Year. The 52-year-old entrepreneur is a candidate along with honorees from 49 other states, the District of Columbia, Guam and Puerto Rico for the national award being presented Tuesday by the U.S. Small Business Administration in Washington, D.C.

“I grew up in a virtual war zone. When I turned 21, it was a revelation to me that I had a long life to live,” Colón said. “When I was growing up, I wanted to be an astronaut because I was inspired by the men who went to the moon. But I didn’t want to put my dad through the cost of all of the education I would have needed to become an astronaut, so I joined the Air Force instead and put myself through college while I was on active duty.”

Colón worked with an Air Force group that helped activate the 50th Space Wing at Schriever Air Force Base east of Colorado Springs and later helped transfer control of a network of reconnaissance satellites to Schriever from Lowry Air Force Base, which was closing. After taking early retirement from the Air Force, Colón devoted full-time to his real estate business, called Martinelli Real Estate, and opened a paintball business called Splat Masters.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, Colón wanted to use his paintball expertise to train soldiers for the global war on terror, and eventually won a contract to help train troops at Fort Carson. A commander at Fort Carson eventually asked Colón if he could design simulators that would look, smell, sound and feel like the blast from an improvised explosive device without producing the force that hurts or kills soldiers.

A parking lot demonstration of the simulator netted Combat Training Solutions a $1.2 million contract that eventually led to dozens of orders from branches of the U.S. military as well as more than a dozen other allied nations. Revenue jumped to $1.8 million in 2007 and $5 million in 2008 before declining to $4 million last year amid a slowdown in defense spending; Colón expects revenue to grow this year as the company wins more work training soldiers.

“Our product is talc mixed with coloring and other things so it looks, smells and sounds like an IED without the force that is generated in a real explosion,” Colón said. “We have grown from just producing a product to also providing training for the warfighters.”
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Contact the writer at 636-0234.