Company History

Moore Good Ideas was started in 1999 when founder David A. Moore’s employer decided to exit the Utah market for LabVIEW consulting. MGI had immediate success when David landed a contract related to ground qualification of the GEM-60 rocket motor’s steering system. The GEM-60 is a solid fuel booster built by Alliant Techsystems (ATK) that is a component of the Delta IV rocket.

In 2000, with that first job complete, MGI had its real startup period. The initially light workload gave David the opportunity to create FAVIs (Find All VIs), a now defunct public index of all free and commercial LabVIEW software. Included in the index was MGI’s own library of free VIs which has expanded ever since. Because of FAVIs and the free software library, MGI became reasonably well known throughout the LabVIEW community.

MGI continued as a sole proprietorship through 2001, 2002, and 2003. MGI’s biggest customer during this period was again ATK, but David was now working with the Non-Destructive Inspection (NDI) group on ultrasonic scanning systems. That series of projects, which is ongoing to the present day, is the most advanced use of National Instruments Motion Controllers anywhere according to NI. The largest system typically performs 10-axis coordination, though it’s now equipped with 13 axes, and is used for the ultrasonic inspection of composite parts for the F-22 Raptor and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter among others.

Incorporating

By the end of 2003, MGI had about 20 clients, and more work than David could handle alone. Moore Good Ideas, Inc. was formed in January of 2004 and Matthew Harrison was hired shortly thereafter. Matt and David and their wives were best friends in college, and that was one of the reasons David had chosen to take a job in Utah.

Matt and David worked on separate projects during 2004, then together for the first half of 2005 on a project for a third group at Alliant Techsystems. The project was an upgrade to an obsolete (PDP-11 based!) test system that measures the shape of rocket motor cases for the Trident ICBM. The new system requires communication between LabVIEW under Windows, under a real-time operating system, and aboard two different types of FPGA. Although it wasn’t in the spec, ATK told MGI that our new software tripled their inspection productivity!

While Matt and David were completing the Trident system, MGI hired Shawn Walpole, the first of our employees hired away from National Instruments. Shawn worked for NI for five years, the last four as part of the LabVIEW development team. Lately, Shawn has been doing alot of work for Moog Aircraft working on tests for some critical flight control systems of the upcoming Boeing 787.

In May of 2006, MGI simultaneously opened a new engineering office and welcomed aboard Brandon Steele, our second NI hire. The office is located right near ATK and has enough room to host Utah LabVIEW User Group meetings. MGI has a weekly meeting there to discuss technical and business issues, but much of the time it’s empty with all of us at work at customer sites. The office incorporates lab space should we need it for a project.

MGI’s next recent hire was Robert Mortensen, again a former NI employee. He began work in January of 2007, and one of his main projects has been a test system for the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, which he, Matt, and Brandon have all been working on together. Robert has also been making significant contributions to the free software library, including the Read/Write Anything VIs.

MGI’s most recent hire is James Laudie, yet another former NI employee. He began work in November of 2007.