Camgian signs new lease for more space in Lawton’s FISTA Innovation Park

FISTA Innovation Park’s first tenant has outgrown its space.

Camgian signed a new lease Tuesday, an agreement that essentially means the defense contractor will swap out its existing 750 square feet with 8,000 square feet, space necessary to let the technology company do what it needs to do, said Taron Epps, Camgian’s director of Oklahoma Operations. The official signing ceremony, held in FISTA’s lobby, was attended by representatives of the variety of local entities that have been involved with the technology park created for military defense contractors, as well as some of the FISTA tenants.

Camgian was the first tenant to sign a long-term contract with FISTA, something it did in November 2021, even as the new park was still under construction.

Gary Butler, Camgian founder and CEO, said he still enjoys the relationship he has with Lawton-Fort Sill, after coming to the FISTA to see what it was and what it offered.

“I felt at home. I saw the vision that Mark (Brace) and the mayor (Stan Booker) had for FISTA,” Butler said, of what he and others describe as a setting that allows for some of the leading technology companies in the U.S. to cluster in a single setting.

Butler said he was last in Lawton for the official groundbreaking for FISTA Innovation Park, and the evolution seen today is astonishing. FISTA President/CEO Krista Ratliff said today, FISTA is at 100 percent occupancy, which is why the guiding board has launched an expansion project to make room for others — new tenants as well as existing tenants who need more space. Ratliff said the new 8,000 square feet will provide more office and lab space for Camgian, while Epps said the company needs the space for engineers and other workers.

Brace, chairman of the FISTA Development Trust Authority (FISTA’s governing body), said it was a significant mark of progress that the first tenant to sign a long-term lease with FISTA is signing another lease. He said the new lease illustrates FISTA’s long climb up a hill to establish work and testing space for those who work with the U.S. military, including Fort Sill and the two U.S. Army Cross-Functional Teams housed there. Brace said FISTA is gaining momentum and will continue to grow, something the board itself is helping as it spearheads an expansion project.

“What you’re seeing today, we’re almost doubling it,” he said about existing space. He warned City of Lawton officials in the crowd that he expects the trust authority will be approaching them for more funding to help with those expansion efforts that have already drawn more than $30 million in state and federal funding.

Booker said those state and federal funds prove those entities are as invested in FISTA as Southwest Oklahoma is. It’s a good investment, Booker said, explaining FISTA will be providing quality jobs, not just for Southwest Oklahoma but for Oklahoma.

“It’s not just good for Lawton, but for Oklahoma as a whole,” Booker said, adding he was pleased to see FISTA’s first signed tenant sign a new lease for 10 times its original space.

Camgian, founded in 2006 and headquartered in Starkville, Mississippi, has said it would support technology development for the two Cross-Functional Teams housed at Fort Sill and the post’s FIRES Center of Excellence. FISTA officials say the company delivers intelligent software services powered by data science and artificial intelligence that drive operational speed, scope and scale, operating “within the vast domains of autonomous systems, knowledge mining, surveillance and recon, alternative data and industrial automation.”