The women played around with different designs and consulted with Ms. Teich's father, an aerospace engineer, about creating a prototype and writing a patent.

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"We develop a product on a commercial model, but we make it military-qualified, " says Andrew Teich , president of Flir's Commercial Vision Systems Group.

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Teich argues that the government benefits from Flir's approach, because as the company churns out more products for commercial customers, prices drop.

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