‘On cutting edge of science and manufacturing’

As nLIGHT CEO Scott Keeney clicked through a slideshow overview of the company’s 25 years, a roughly 6-foot-tall military laser loomed across the room.

The device is a testament to how far nLIGHT has come since its days in telecommunications. The vertically integrated, semiconductor laser manufacturer celebrated its anniversary at its Camas headquarters Monday, gathering staff, Discovery High School students, as well as local business and political leaders for the occasion.

nLIGHT, which reported $198.5 million in revenues in 2024, is now a global leader in high power laser manufacturing.

The company’s laser semiconductors can be found not only in commercial and manufacturing operations, medical facilities and military weapons but also roaming the red planet on the Mars Rover and helping to build SpaceX rocket engines.

But nLIGHT didn’t start out in all these industries back at the turn of the century.

“We started with the very basic vision that semiconductor lasers would improve at a rapid rate,” Keeney said.

Keeney and engineers Mark DeVito and Scott Karlsen launched nLIGHT to local fanfare in 2000.

The company manufactured devices to boost fiber-optic cable capacity initially.

“What we’re seeing with nLIGHT Photonics is a beachhead for the optical networking technology sector in Clark County,” Bart Phillips, then-president of the Columbia River Economic Development Council, told The Columbian at the time.

Keeney had been president of another Bothell-based laser company before meeting DeVito and Karlsen. The company’s central Vancouver manufacturing facility opened the following year as the telecommunications market crashed.

nLIGHT started with about 20 employees and struggled through the economic downturns that followed. But it ultimately found success, going public in 2018, something Keeney called an important milestone for the company.

“We hunkered down and we persisted,” he said.

The markets outside of telecommunications blossomed, leading nLIGHT to continue growing.

Today, nLIGHT employs close to 800 people, with two offices in Clark County, one in Hillsboro, Ore., and another in Colorado. The company moved into its current Camas headquarters during the pandemic.

Keeney said Monday technology companies need to have a vision of where the technology is going but also understand it’s going to be a dynamic process.

nLIGHT, for instance, grew in part with a substantial number of Chinese clients, as that country was growing out its industrial capacity. Then, the country changed politically, ushering in an era of indefinite rule by its leaders.

“We viewed that as a strategic inflection point in the world,” Keeney said.

The company pivoted, aiming to grow outside China and shifting its supply chain away from the Asian powerhouse.

The move hit the company’s profitability, but nLIGHT successfully embraced the domestic defense industry, taking in $171 million in U.S. Department of Defense contracts in 2023.

“After years of research and development across industry and government, the laser industry has seen rapid progress over the last few years,” John Barr, a portfolio manager at Needham Funds, wrote for the investor publication MOI Global in early 2024. “Laser systems may be operationally deployed in the defense industry within the next five years, and nLIGHT could be one of a handful of suppliers.”

U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said Monday the company’s lasers have become critical to advanced chip manufacturing and tremendously important to American defense.

“You have built a company that is on the cutting edge of science and manufacturing,” Murray said. The senator said the company is at the heart of Camas, a city she called a hub of innovation.

“Your work on lasers isn’t just science fiction, although it feels like it to all of us who are not scientists,” Murray said. “What you do here actually echoes across our country and the entire world.”

Mentorship program at Discovery

nLIGHT is revamping its mentorship program, nCONNECT, which will send its engineers across the parking lot to work with high school students at Discovery High School next door.

“What we’re trying to do is bring the talented engineers and scientists that we have into the schools to help in any way that we can,” nLIGHT CEO Scott Keeney said.

The company had a previous partnership with Evergreen Public Schools.

Discovery High School has about 240 students.

Dan Huld, principal at the high school, said it’s a tremendous opportunity for the students, many of whom are interested in pursuing engineering.

Huld said students will benefit from talking with engineers and scientists about what work in those fields is really like.

One of the school’s teachers is a former nLIGHT employee who was inspired by the previous iteration of nCONNECT to pursue teaching.

Huld hopes the program may also lead to internships for students, as well.

Keeney said his team wants every student to have the opportunity to succeed.

“We think that mentors can play a vital role in helping them,” he added.

Sarah Wolf: 360-735-4513; sarah.wolf@columbian.com