In 2022, Southwest Research Institute celebrated its 75th anniversary. Throughout the last year, we celebrated our visionary founder Tom Slick, who established the Institute in 1947 with a goal of making the world a better place by providing applied research. We celebrated the people who came and joined the nascent organization located on the outskirts of San Antonio over seven decades ago. And we celebrated the bright and curious scientists, engineers and support staff of today who continue to join the Institute to help solve our clients’ most challenging problems.
Despite the uncertainties of the recent past, 2022 turned out to be another outstanding year of technical advancements and solid financial performance due to our staff’s remarkable capabilities, collaborations and innovative thinking.
Our research activities continue to provide solutions to some of humankind’s most difficult challenges from deep sea to deep space. In this last year, we invested in developing our own hydrogen infrastructure to research the transition to a hydrogen economy. SwRI staff also established a sustainable technologies working group and a 5G special interest group to incorporate this next-generation information technology promising to transfer data 100 times faster than 4G.
In addition to having our staff collaborate with University of Texas at San Antonio professors on Connect projects, the Institute launched new cooperative research initiatives with The University of Texas at Austin and Tecnolόgico de Monterrey, a private, nonprofit university system in Mexico.
Our consolidated FY22 revenue set a record for the Institute and the staff found innovative ways to serve clients as our contract backlog grew to a historic new level. Our space science program had grown to the extent that we recently established a new Space Sector organization, comprising three divisions: the Space Science, Space Systems, and Solar System Science Divisions. The Institute also completed two new flagship buildings. The newly constructed Applied Power annex is 65,000 square feet and includes skybridge access to additional facilities. Our 74,000-square-foot Space System Integration Facility nearing completion will support the rapid design, assembly and testing of spacecraft.
I would like to thank our staff, the executive leadership team, Board of Directors and Advisory Trustees for their many contributions in FY22. I am grateful for the agility and commitment our staff has shown over the past couple of years as we have managed the many formidable challenges of the pandemic and its impact on the research business.
And now, as we reflect on our 75th anniversary — a significant milestone in the life of any organization — we look forward to the next era with confidence and high expectations. We closed fiscal year 2022 with a record research volume of $798 million, a staff of nearly 3,000 and strong momentum as the Institute plants seeds for the next 75 years and beyond. Whatever challenges and opportunities may lie ahead, Southwest Research Institute’s dedicated staff will rise to the occasion.
President & CEO