Laser-optics company moves to Oviedo

Leonid Glebov stands amid the beams, wires and metal studs of what will soon be the new home of OptiGrate Corp., the laser-optics company he helped found more than a dozen years ago.

It will be a big move for the small business, the laser scientist said last week as he checked on the construction’s progress. Until now, the company has been a tenant in Central Florida Research Park as part of the University of Central Florida’s business incubator.

OptiGrate will nearly double its space when it moves into the new, 10,000-square-foot facility in Oviedo. Its expansion, Glebov said, is driven by growing sales of its tiny electro-optic components, used in everything from military communications gear to medical equipment.

“I won’t say we’ll double our employees in a year — no, not that fast,” said Glebov, an award-winning UCF physicist who immigrated from Russia in the mid-1990s and became a U.S. citizen a few years ago. “We expect growth to be steady as our sales increase. This is all very exciting.”

OptiGrate is not alone, according to laser-optics experts in Central Florida, which has one of the largest concentrations of such companies in the country. Many laser firms are now in hiring mode, filling high-paying technology jobs that exceed by 25 percent or more the average annual wage of about $40,000 in Orange County.

Read more from the Orlando Sentinel here.