Gillian Manufacturing (hereafter known as GM for convenience's sake) was a small manufacturer of replacement parts for vehicles, including the rare powered armor system, and short- to mid-range spacecraft. Given the prevalence of certain types of said conveyances they managed to be moderately successful, enough that the original founders could purchase a small hangar and one or two ships from the salvage yard which they proceeded to repair and refurbish, then sell on the open market.
Seeing this as a viable side venture they hired on more workers (bringing the total workforce to about twenty-two) and also a few designers who were at the time down on their luck. Although unable to stay current with new technologies for awhile, they were still capable of keeping a relatively steady supply of refurbished ships (averaging about six per year, allowing a minimum of two months per vessel) to the market.
Following this GM underwent a second expansion which brought in a team of roughly forty engineers and specialists to the fold, and the acquisition of a newer and larger hangar that could facilitate the construction of starships. Although overhead costs have multiplied as a result the “Abydos Lab” is seeming to prove worth the expense, coupled to the fact that there is no shortage of salvage to rebuild.
Soon afterward, they were able to acquire some state of the art tools along with some of the latest stardrive technology with which they fabricated the design for a star cruiser (which they later constructed with plans to build more). Under the capable direction of Jacob Gillian (taking over from where his uncle left off) they were intending to move beyond the relatively simple business of taking old vehicles and making them new again and begin the task of producing their own vessels in limited runs.
Some time after they had been in the secondhand starship market a consultant working for GM noticed that a good deal of the craft they had sold were going to Lorath Matriarchy customers. Intrigued, the head of the business made some inquiries and learned that the Lorath government had a definite interest in persons willing to repair old ships to keep them in use–for a modest fee of course.
Besides that potential contract they were also looking into supplying the retools with customized space suits, traditional EVA gear with a twist, though that process is still in the trial and error stages as some things simply cannot be learned by acquiring an existing suit and taking it apart.
The original machine shop where GM originated also underwent changes; while it continued to produce parts as needed they shifted focus somewhat. Having specialists in the field of energy manipulation technologies meant that they were able to begin rebuilding salvaged starship weaponry to outfit the ships they sold with. Since there are quite a few manufactures already on the market it was deemed unnecessary to do much aside from modify older systems for better output, increased efficiency and the like.