SASCO Company Overview

SASCO Inc. is a Florida Corporation that was founded in 1987. The company owner, Charles Ashbaugh has been in the marine electronics business for over 40 years. The company’s main focus had been in sales of marine electronics to international fishing fleets and had customers in almost every maritime country in the world. For the last 35 years they have focused on their international customers almost exclusively.

In 1991, a vessel belonging to one of SASCO’s clients was hijacked. It took a few days for the fleet owners to realize the emergency and by then it was too late. Since we supplied the electronics to that client, SASCO was asked to develop a plan to better protect those vessels in the future. And so began the development of its vessel tracking system (VMS). At that time, SASCO linked to the fleet using HF SSB radios and the few, very new GPS navigation satellites. The information to the owners was via telephone as there was no such thing the internet.

In September 1996, SASCO first learned of the first commercial LEO satellites and immediately understood the benefits of using satellites rather than HF radio as its communication link. They obtained the necessary licenses (one of the very first) to become a reseller and application developer and soon began converting it VMS from HF SSB link to the new satellites. The results were excellent.

After over 35 years as a problem solver, the company has provided satellite based custom solutions for diverse applications for many international and maritime clients. "If it is on the ocean, how can we help?" has been our motto.

SASCO now holds licenses and dealership agreements with four different satellite systems the better to help its customers design the best solution to their particular requirements.