Vost™ Valve is a patent protected (with ongoing patents) product of BigHornValve, Inc., based in Sheridan, Wyoming (a Wyoming "C" corporation) and founded in June 1997. Bighorn Valve has recieved several major research grants from NASA, National Science Foundation and Moog. Management is headed by engineer/inventor Robert K. Burgess. The core business line is focused on development and production of Vost™ technology for Fluid Control with an emphasis on petrochemical, hazardous fluids and cryogenic applications.

BigHorn Valve, Inc. is currently working on a number of breakthough technology projects including:

Cryogenic Valve Project
   - funded in part by NASA

Petrochemical
   - funded in part by the NSF Phase II grant.

Flow Contol
   - funded in part by the NSF Phase II grant.

Magnetic Valve Actuation
   - funded in part by the NSF Phase II grant.

Cryogenic Plastic Composite Valve Project
   - funded in part by NASA Phase I grant
    (recieved December 2003).

It started with an idea to build a better valve for irrigation equipment.

That was in early 1997 when Kevin Burgess' Sheridan-based company was called Cloud Peak Engineering.

Today the company incorporated in June 1997 as Big Horn Valve Inc., with Burgess as its president is involved in developing and constructing valves that will improve efficiency of NASA spacecraft.

The company in November received a Phase I feasibility grant from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center that will fund studies of various materials with an eye toward developing a light-weight version of a cryogenics valve Big Horn Valve developed under funding from NASA last year.

It was the only grant NASA awarded to a Wyoming company in the current grant cycle, according to Burgess and Zachary Gray, Big Horn Valve engineer who wrote the application for the funds.

The grant will finance up to $70,000 for two teams that will spend about six months testing various materials to determine whether valves made of those materials would be suitable for NASA's demands.

Gray said one team will be looking at composite materials such as fiberglass while the second team studies the feasibility of "exotic metals," a term that embraces titanium, aluminum and metal alloys used in aerospace design.

"We might also look at ceramics like the ceramic tiles on the space shuttle," Gray said. Such materials have an advantage in not only being potentially lightweight, but in being able to withstand extremely high temperatures.

Part of the research, Gray said, will include determining what weight is "light enough" to build a valve that will meet NASA's needs in both weight and in function.

"NASA uses a lot of cryogenic fluids for their scientific instruments," Gray said. "They need to control those fluids."

That was the need that led to grants to Big Horn Valve to develop the prototype cryogenic valve. Big Horn Valve created a valve that solves a big problem for the space agency ‹ leakage. Big Horn Valve's technology has produced a valve that can be closed so securely, not even fumes can leak.

The technology starts with VOST acronym for Venturi Off-Set Technology, Burgess said. Big Horn Valve's literature calls VOST "the single, most innovative 'breakthru' in valve technology in the last 50 years," and Burgess said the company has more than a dozen patents and pending patents to protect the design and process.

The original VOST valve comes in two sections, each with a partial closure at one end. The partially closed ends are placed together, and the valve is closed by rotating one end to complete the closure ‹ a process called axial rotation.

The result is a valve that operates without need of a stem ‹ which was the initial goal of Cloud Peak Engineering.

A series of NASA SBIR/STTR grants since 1995 have helped Big Horn Valve modify the original VOST valve to create a magnetized closure that seals without leakage of fluids or vapors, a thermally isolated closure that can prevent a contained fluid from freezing and bursting tanks or pipes and, last year, the cryogenic model that will contain, leak-free, the supercold fluids used by NASA.

NASA is not the valve's only customer, Burgess said. Big Horn Valve Inc. was featured in a July issue of Valve World Magazine in an article written by Smith touting the axially rotated magVOST™ design being developed to replace leaking valves in "environmentally sensitive applications."

Smith noted at least half the fugitive emissions in oil refineries come from leaking valves. The magVOST™ would prevent that loss, he wrote.

Gray said much of the credit for Big Horn Valve's success belongs to Sheridan engineer Ronn Smith and Jay Stender, a consultant who assisted BHV in getting critical grants through the Small Business Innovative Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs, who did the initial work on VOST.

"They really brought that work forward," he said. "What we're doing now is a continuation of their work."