One is creating a transmitter chip that could help authorities track and identify the contents of the 9 million containers loaded and unloaded at U.S. ports each year. The other builds computerized simulators for training portside crane operators, one of only five companies worldwide to do so.

Executives at each company have their own thoughts on whether the U.S. government should permit an Arab nation to manage American terminals, but on this they agree: The controversy could be good for business.

David Carter is CEO of S5 Wireless, where engineers have developed a chip whose signal, unlike global positioning systems, doesn't rely on line-of-sight. It can penetrate steel containers stacked three deep and still be picked up more than a mile away, Carter said.

Kidnapping's role: S5's research, funded by Homeland Security grants, is part of a larger Marine Asset Tag and Tracking system under development. Yet the impetus for S5's foray into tracking technology had nothing to do with Sept. 11, 2001, and everything to do with June 5, 2002.

That's the day Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped from her Salt Lake City home, sparking a nationwide search - and the imagination of a few engineers determined to provide a mechanism for parents to keep tabs on their kids.

"GPS wouldn't work indoors and required too much battery power, and using a cell phone was too expensive," Carter said. "So we developed something that could fit around a child's neck like in a lanyard or something."

Many months later, when the government went looking to fund research on container tracking, S5 had a jump on the competition. Already, the chip has been tested at a Salt Lake City container storage yard. It is Carter's hope that all this talk about port security will push it even higher on the Department of Homeland Security's priority list.

"The size of the container tracking market is huge," said Carter. "Eventually, this could represent a substantial piece of our business."

And because a substantial part of the port management business is owned by Dubai Ports World, it is understandable that Carter doesn't comment on the Persian Gulf company's deal to take over London-based Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company, or P&O.

Arab company controversy: The $6.8 billion buyout would make DP World, owned by the United Arab Emirates, the third-largest container terminal operator in the world, and put the company in charge of ports in New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Miami, Baltimore and New Orleans. Although U.S. companies long ago ceded control of the shipping market to foreign companies, including some owned by foreign governments, the DP World deal - or, rather, the Bush administration's approval of it - has enraged American lawmakers, port operators and everyday citizens who fear that terrorists could exploit the arrangement.

Even the U.S. Coast Guard, in charge of reviewing security at Dubai-owned ports, warned the Bush administration it could not rule out that the company's assets could be used for terrorist operations, according to a document released Monday by a Senate committee.

Despite those concerns, the U.S. Treasury Department's foreign investment committee, which includes representatives from the departments of Defense, Justice, Commerce, State and Homeland Security, unanimously found no national security concerns that would activate a 45-day national security review required by the law that established the panel.

DP World has agreed to additional review and to temporarily segregate the U.S. operations in the meantime. Still, protests erupted at ports and, on Friday, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey filed a lawsuit to stop the Persian Gulf company from taking over management of its container terminal at Port Newark in New Jersey.

Training crane operators: The deal does pose a threat, says Scott Huntsman, president and CEO of GlobalSim Inc. But it has nothing to do with national security.

"The scary thing is that Dubai massively overpaid and they will have to charge a lot more for containers going through ports or this will be a big money loser," said Huntsman, a first cousin to Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.

To be clear, GlobalSim isn't in the business of catching drug smugglers or stopping the illegal transport of nuclear weapons, although the company does a lot of work for the U.S. government, some of it top secret. Rather, the Draper company builds training simulators for shipping crane operators.

GlobalSim employees have been paying close attention to Dubai's expansion plans - much more so, it would seem, than President Bush, who has said he didn't know about the sale until it was complete, and members of Congress, who blasted the administration for not consulting with them before sanctioning the deal.

Huntsman says the news media have under-reported the scope of the deal, focusing only on the six largest U.S. ports involved. P&O has seven facilities in Texas, three in Louisiana, plus operations in Boston, Maryland, Mississippi, Delaware, Maine and Virginia, according to its Web site. In all, the buyout encompasses 30 terminals in 18 countries.

"I find it silly that members of Congress and the president himself are claiming that they found out about this just days ago," said Huntsman, noting that he has been reading about the deal in trade journals since November.

As for the security issue, Huntsman said he isn't the least bit worried. "It's not going to make a difference at all when it comes to security. In order for [terrorists] to infiltrate something, they would have to indoctrinate all the people running the ports or fire them . . . and that would never happen."

GlobalSim just finished building a simulator for the Port of Marseilles and has signed contracts to deliver similar systems to Le Havre, France, and the New York Shipping Association at Port Elizabeth, N.J. Next month, at a trade show in Pusan, South Korea, Huntsman and other GlobalSim executives will meet with DP World officials, as they have done several times during the past three years. Only this time, they have another selling point.

"We may tell them that by buying our systems, they are buying American," and that could help build good will with Dubai's U.S. skeptics, Huntsman said.

"I know all the senior guys at Dubai World, and though they're not super friendly, they're not anti-American by any means."

lfantin@sltrib.com