Shade Sails: a Glaring Opportunity

Shade Sails a Glaring Opportunity
In Australia, which has the highest skin-cancer rate in the world, sun protection has become a way of life.

Schoolchildren are prohibited from playing outside without hats.

And most playgrounds at parks, schools and day-care centers - along with many commercial outdoor areas, such as parking lots - are covered with swooping cloth structures that Aussies call "shade sails."

When McKenna, 41, a Bishop Moore High School graduate, decided to move back to Florida several years ago to be near relatives, he and Maranta set up Sky Shades USA in Longwood.

They brought in Australian-born golfer Greg Norman as a partner, imported several other Australians with experience designing and engineering shade sails, and prepared to strike it rich in what they figured would become a multibillion dollar U.S. industry.

Three years later, however, it isn't yet clear whether shade sails - also called tension structures - are the next boom business or are destined to remain a niche industry.

Sky Shades is on track to do $6 million in sales this year, with projects that include coverings in downtown Orlando's Wall Street Plaza and structures for a resort in Dubai, McKenna said.

The Longwood company also has 42 distributorships nationwide.