"Brian is still making his way through the candy store," quipped Dan Fox, Chief Executive Officer, as he watched the firm's maintenance man work to reveal the contents of one of the containers.

Systems engineer Mary Mentzer was also an interested observer, no doubt thinking of days ahead when she will be deeply involved in production at the nanotech facility along with Fox.

Plans call for the company to begin testing the application of super-strong, wear-resistant coatings to metal at approximately the end of the third quarter of 2008. The process was patented by the University of Minnesota and was signed over for use by the Rushford firm back in April.

There is plenty of preliminary work to be done in the meantime, and the three employees of Rushford Hypersonic (including Fox) are eager to get to it.

Helping bring the north end firm's operating date closer to reality was the recent arrival of a semi load of equipment from Santa Clara, Calif.

Mentzer is credited with having spotted the opportunity for purchasing the goods from a Dr. George Tzanazaras, who is retiring and wanted to sell a variety of items.

Fox labeled the purchase "a deal of a lifetime," adding: "It's nice to have people who want to help you succeed."

Among the many items is a Cambridge scanning electron microscope - something Rushford Hypersonic could put to good use.

"It'll be for our lab," enthused Fox, "and that's a big plus because now we'll be able to evaluate everything we're doing.

"It's manually operated," he noted, "but you can still do everything you can do with the ones today. So this is great. For what we're doing, it's phenomenal."

The equipment purchase is another step in the direction of an operating nanotechnology plant in Rushford.

Said Fox, satisfied with the development, "We're making progress. Everything we said we were going to do we're doing."