Hayden Data was incorporated in 2020, but the idea for Chattanooga-based company began on the other side of the world 13 years ago, with a massive, devastating fire in Australia.
What’s known as the Black Saturday bush fires began burning Feb. 7, 2009, in Victoria, on the southeastern coast. Fifteen separate fires burned for a total of five weeks, consumed 1.1 million acres and killed nearly 200 people.
Hayden Data executive Florian Gegier says the investigation revealed that 11 of the 15 fires were caused by power infrastructure that had failed in one way or another.
“In some cases, it was as simple as poles collapsing and [energized lines] igniting,” he says. “Utilities do inspections as they can, usually every few years, but a lot can happen in that time frame, the worst case being that infrastructure fails before you can identify it.”
Gegier, Hayden Data’s director of sales and business development, says Iain Puddy, an Australian whose background includes extensive infrastructure and power-generation experience, sought a technical solution.