Vanguard Goes West: Our Fiber Optic Sheaths and MD&M West

The science of fiber optics has come a long way since the days of 1842, when Daniel Colladon wrote the first popular science article on the subject, “On the Reflections of a Ray of Light inside a Parabolic Stream”.  Since then, that clumsy “ray of light” has been honed and miniaturized until today a standard optical fiber is contained within a clumped cable of thousands of its kind. This allows for many possible uses, some of the most prominent being in medicine. Whether a cardiologist needs better light by which to navigate his scalpel while performing heart surgery, or whether a surgeon needs fiber optic nasopharyngoscopy to examine a nasal cavity for tumors, polyps, chronic nosebleeds, sleep apnea, or the like; there’s a strong medical need for many different types and lengths of fiber optic cables.

Likewise, there is a strong need to protect the intricate design of these cables from the inevitable wear and tear they suffer when utilized in a medical or dental environment.   That’s where Vanguard’s cable sheaths come into the conversation. Being that we have long-standing experience in manufacturing fiber optic cable sheaths for the medical industry; and being that we’re able both to perform long production runs of standard sheaths and/or customize our sheaths to comply with the intricacies of specific devices, we certainly are looking forward to this upcoming MD&M West in Anaheim, CA, February 12-14, 2013, at the Anaheim Convention Center.

As anyone in the medical device field readily knows, MD&M-West is one of the main medical showcases in North America, both in terms of exhibiting new technology and in presenting new techniques and approaches in manufacturing for medical products. Finally, MD&M is one of the primary means by which those in the medical OEM field can meet face-to-face in an informal, comfortable setting, and get to know one another’s business needs and timetables more clearly.

At MD&M West, we look forward as always to meeting up with old friends and business partners, as well as establish new possible ventures for the coming year. Not to mention that mid-February’s usually a nice time to leave Connecticut for a couple of days in favor of Anaheim! So stop by our booth, booth number 3355, and come say hello. For a complimentary pass to the exhibition, visit http://www.mdmwest.com. 

 In the meantime, contact us by phone or by email if you have any questions about our attendance of MD&M West or anything else.

Vanguard and Hurricane Sandy: Providing Customers with Shelter from the Storm

When Hurricane Sandy pile-drove into the New York Metropolitan Area, it didn’t take much for anyone who was caught in it to realize that the night was going to be a long and potentially dangerous one. Unfortunately, those instincts were spot-on. Hurricane Sandy proved to be the worst natural disaster to befall the New York region in nearly a century (the Spanish Flu of 1918-19 being the worst “natural disaster”). Over one hundred people in the Tri-State Area alone lost their lives due to the storm. Hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses suffered damage from flooding and 80 mph winds; many neighborhoods also were decimated by fire. In total, the official tally of damage now amounts to an estimated $71 billion, of which $9 billion is earmarked to improve the storm protection infrastructure of the region in the event of a future disaster of this scale.

Our own facility here in Connecticut lucked out: we suffered no remarkable damage to either our property or production capability. And as many tragedies happened that day, there were an equal number of stories of resistance and resilience in the face of Nature. In fact, many homes and businesses equipped with hurricane shutters and/or floodgate systems came through the disaster in good working order. While many companies should take credit for providing protection for businesses throughout the region, we at Vanguard contributed as well by providing  the gaskets and  seals we extrude here at our facility to several companies that expertly manufacture hurricane and flood protection equipment  used throughout public and private infrastructure to help insure no rain or water creeps (or sweeps) into a building.

Hurricane Sandy was a wake-up call of sorts to New York and the surrounding environs. Hurricanes, as it turns out, are no longer simply the province of Florida, Louisiana, or the Carolinas; they can happen right here in Connecticut and they can be heartbreakingly devastating. Now that the superstorm’s fury has passed, it’s time to insure that our houses, offices, warehouses, factories, and storefronts are secure from any future danger.   Meanwhile, here at Vanguard, we’ll keep working with the manufacturers that produce this high quality protection equipment and providing them with the highest quality sealing products in the industry.