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Welcome
once again to the annual EBJ Business Achievement Awards. This
year’s cast of glittering stars include no more than 17 business
achievement medalists and 21 merit awards. So button up your tuxedo
and lets get on with the show!
SMALL FIRMS (<$20
MILLION)
Gold Medal:
Recmediation
Inc. for growing from a startup in June 2000 to 75 employees
and a sizeable equipment fleet at the end of 2002. Revenues took
off from $4 million in 2001 to $17 million in 2002, or over 400%
growth. New Jersey-based Recmediation is a contractor providing
demolition, dismantlement, rigging, hazardous waste management
and remediation to Fortune 500 and top ranked ENR corporations
including Dupont, BASF and Honeywell. It ascribes its growth to
the trademarked Recmediation methodology of "synergistically combining
our vast experience and resources to provide effective and safe
turnkey services."
Silver Medal: Environmental Waste
Management Associates LLC, a Parsippany, NJ-based contractor
for growing to $15 million and increasing average project size
from $150,000 to $800,000 in 2002. The company attributes much
of its growth to Secur-It, a program that guarantees a fixed-price
cleanup until a no further action letter is obtained. In the program,
AIG Environmental supports EWMA’s guarantee, providing cost overrun
insurance up to twice the guaranteed price, and liability insurance
for known and unknown pollution.
Bronze Medal: Panther
Technologies Inc., a 2001 EBJ gold medalist, for its growth
to $5.3 million in revenues in 2002 and a net profits increase
of 400%. Started in 2000, Panther’s contract work includes decontamination,
demolition, landfill capping and site remediation in the Northeast
for pharmaceutical, chemical, waste and transportation companies.
President Peter Palko says: "Our niche continues to be our expertise
in reducing cost to closure, either by value-engineering conventional
approaches, cost-avoidance or innovative solutions…. including
creating other companies to support our Brownfield Redevelopment
Initiatives as well as our innovative technology development programs."
In 2002 Panther introduced a product line with PermeOx Plus, an
oxygen release compound for in-situ treatment of hydrocarbons
in groundwater.
Honorable Mentions: The
Sustainable Company which, since its founding in March
of 2000 in Sausalito, California, has grown to $3 million serving
legal, financial/insurance and commercial/industrial clients in
a consulting capacity. Sullivan
Consulting Group, founded in San Diego in 1998, for growing
from a two-man operation to over 45 personnel with annual revenues
exceeding $5 million in 2002. A major contributor to growth was
the August 2002 acquisition of remediation contractor Pacific
Treatment Environmental Services to allow SCG to expand into
turnkey projects. SCG clients include the US Navy, US Army, US
Air Force, state and local governments and local commercial entities.
SLR International Inc.
(fully owned by SLR Group Ltd. of England) which since
inception in July 2000 has grown to 40 professionals and revenue
of $4 million with offices in Alaska, Washington and California.
SLR is involved with permitting, planning and compliance work
in support of oil & gas producers throughout Alaska. Other market
niches include toxicology, product stewardship, environmental
management, spill response in cold climates and an emerging niche
to implement stewardship, lifecycle and continuing improvement
programs for the biotechnology and hi-tech sectors. INTERA
Inc. for its management- and employee-funded buyback from
Duke Engineering and its first-year performance of $11 million
in revenue and EBIT of 20%. INTERA revived its name in the marketplace
after seven years, and reestablished its reputation as a high-end
consulting firm and for its flow and transport models of subsurface
contaminants. Schoor
DePalma for continuing its double-digit growth in environmental
work to $19 million (or 25% of the firm’s total). Expansion in
its remediation work necessitated the establishment of two new
departments: Utilities & Insurance Remediation and Site Assessment
& Remediation.
MEDIUM FIRMS (<$100
MILLION)
Gold: Compass
Environmental for continued and focused growth from 100
to 180 employees in 2002. Brian Delaney, director of operations
& development for the Chicago-based Compass says: "Rather than
follow others into unfamiliar, new, unrelated programs to compensate
for the economy or lagging sales, Compass strengthened our focus
into the core business units of remediation, industrial cleaning,
demolition and Liabilities to Assets." Besides winning $5 million
of work from Fortune 500 firms which it had not worked with before,
Compass acquired a 285-acre steel mill that represents a $30-million
remediation, demolition and redevelopment effort. The effort is
completely funded by Compass, it is performing all the work associated
with the site and will create over 200 jobs in Kansas City.
Silver: WRS Infrastructure &
Environment Inc. for showing that a previously unprofitable
unit of a major corporation can change direction as a private
firm. WRS struggled for ten years as a part of Westinghouse but
in 1997 WRS was taken private by a team of management with River
Associates LLC as the investment partner. After averaging annual
losses of $6 million on revenues of $45 million during the 10
Westinghouse years, WRS has achieved average profits of $3 million
on average revenues of $65 million over the past five years. In
2002, WRS achieved the best year in its 15-year history, and an
$11 million improvement over the last full year’s loss under Westinghouse.
Bronze: Geologic Services
Corp. for 68% growth to $24.8 million in environmental
management services predominantly to the petrochemical and oil
& gas industries. Founded in 1981, the employee-owned, Connecticut-based
GSC with 8 offices in 6 states has grown from 120 to 222 people
in the last three years. In 2001 GSC launched sister company Perillon
Software Inc. which provides collaborative program management
software for EH&S departments in industry and regulatory agencies.
Honorable Mention: SCS
Engineers for sustaining growth in a difficult market
to reach more than 400 employees, managing its first major acquisition
and completing a senior management transition by electing a new
President & CEO. The innovative selection process was conducted
through a representative committee of 18 employee-owners to endorse
James Walsh to replace SCS founding principal Robert P. Stearns
as President/CEO.
LARGE FIRMS
Gold: Weston
Solutions Inc. for its dramatic change in structure and
performance to become a successful employee-owned company. The
former publicly-held company ‘went private’ in June 2001 and it
now has a consistent record of profitability, growth and financial
stability. EBITDA has increased four-fold since 1999, appraised
value increased 35% in its first seven months as a private company
and a 50% debt reduction is expected by June 2003. The turnaround
has re-energized client development and improved employee engagement,
reduced turnover and improved client loyalty.
Silver: Kleinfelder Inc.
has grown from $65 million in 1998 to $165 million in 2002 with
57 offices and testing laboratories and 1,400 employees throughout
the midwestern and western United States. Founder Jim Kleinfelder
set a precedent by opening the company books to every employee
and making them shareholders. Since his retirement, Kleinfelder
has acquired several firms allowing them to expand geographically
and adding environmental planning and construction management
to its core services of environmental, geotechnical and construction
consulting.
Bronze: SECOR International
Inc. for near elimination of its debt and a doubling of
EBITDA since 2000. Recent client successes have included United
Technology, BP Oil and Chevron Texaco for the $100-million privately
held firm, but the real accomplishment has been its focused management.
Says Stephen Andersen, VP of technical programs; "In early 1998,
through a management transition, SECOR began a process of maturation
where growth and top-line revenue were intentionally slowed and
organization, stability and bottom-line profit were emphasized….
We abandoned the traditional ‘hunter-gatherer’ C&E model in 2001
and opted for a customer-centric approach focused around large
core commercial clients."
TECHNOLOGY MERIT AWARDS
Awarding medals
for environmental technology is touchy given the multitude of
applications, systems and engineered solutions. So rather than
pick winners, EBJ has chosen to issue merit awards for those nominations
that caught our interest for innovation in products, projects
or IT applications.
EnviroLogic for
its work with the US Military Sealift Command, US Navy P2 Initiative
and the USCG for the onboard treatment of oily wastewater and
its development of the Navalkleen biotreatment kit.
Space Imaging LLC
for succeeding in selling its high-resolution satellite imaging
services in a growing number of environmental applications including
forest fire risk assessment in Florida, urban and forest monitoring
for the state of Kentucky and a complete digital portrait of Puerto
Rico which is supporting infrastructure, natural resource and
emergency response planning and management.
Lantec Products Inc.
for its new Q Pac tower packing system which creates a 33% cost
saving in packed towers for scrubbing, absorption, air stripping,
etc. by allowing substantially higher air velocities.
SRE Inc. for the
CAP Clean Air Plant, a portable, biological air cleaning system
for industrial air emissions, remediation projects and one of
the first applications of biological treatment in indoor air quality.
Pacific Northwest National Lab,
operated for DOE by Battelle, for a cost effective remote sensing
system for rangeland monitoring of 262 million acres of BLM land
that uses spectral signatures to portray overgrazing, weed invasion
or fire damage. PNNL is also recognized for Sensor Fish, a fish-shaped
device with accelerometers, pressure gauges rate gyros used to
reveal what juvenile salmon experience as they pass through hydroelectric
dams.
Purafil Inc. for the
industry’s first international sale of a 1-ton chlorine emergency
gas scrubber for a Melbourne Water plant in Australia where plants
using substantial amounts of chlorine have been classified as
Major Hazard Facilities.
USFilter
for the introduction of Actiflo, a ballasted flocculation
clarification process with a small footprint that has provided
a new weapon for communities dealing with CSOs (combined sewer
overflows) and SSOs (storm sewer overflows). Actiflo has been
installed in Bremerton Wash., Sioux Falls S.D., Little Falls N.J.,
Londonderry N.H., and Tampa Bay, F.L.
PROJECT MERIT AWARDS
Gannett
Fleming Inc. for ushering the Keystone Sanitary Landfill
in Pennsylvania to becoming the first ISO 14001 certified landfill
in the U.S. Gannett Fleming developed the environmental management
system (EMS) and incorporated the practices of three diverse facilities
into one EMS.
Golder Associates for its
novel application of risk analysis to the transportation sector
in its work for Washington State Department of Transportation,
which is proposing $30 billion in megaprojects over the next 20
years. Prior to this application, developed mostly in pipelines,
flood-control dams and Superfund sites, risks were assessed qualitatively
and poorly prioritized.
Foster Wheeler Environmental
Corp. for its establishment of a universally applied work
process that ensures consistent quality, cost, schedule and safety
in all its projects. The approach is expected to save more than
$200 million on the $1.2-billion Rocky Mountain Arsenal cleanup.
US Filter Operating Services
for the formation of the nation’s largest private-public partnership
with the city of Indianapolis. The new 20-year agreement covers
all facets of the city’s waterworks system that serves 1.1 million
people, secures a five-year freeze on water rates and ties 20%
of the company’s annual fee to performance.
Ruekert/Mielke
for negotiating the Racine Intergovernmental Agreement and
devising a novel regional revenue sharing formula driven by the
need to expand the City of Racine’s wastewater plant. The Wisconsin
city’s tax base steadily eroded as suburban areas that depended
on its water infrastructure developed around it, and the suburban
areas were stymied in their attempts to incorporate and support
development to the point that areas were acrimoniously competing
with each other for development.
Chemical Safety Corp.
and its CEO Tony Diamantidis for the foundation of the Athens
Environmental Foundation dedicated to all the environmental issues
surrounding the 2004 summer Olympics in Greece.
IT MERIT AWARDS
ENSR
for its extensive use of client and project extranet sites
that provide real-time information. Examples include a food manufacturer
that managed its spring water supply sources daily through drought,
a chemical company that managed all information relating to its
petroleum tank remediation program and a power company that tracked
regulations and maintained 100% compliance.
Aerie Technologies
for its Aerie PocketDynaQ system that integrates handheld
and desktop systems to simplify the process of monitoring compliance,
regulatory, industry or company standards. The Access-based system
generates reports, follow-up cues and correction dates directly
from the field data.
InteGreyted Consultants
for furthering development of GlobalNetEHS, a worldwide community
of 500 EHS professionals in 30 countries contracted to provide
EHS intelligence under the direction of InteGreyted’s senior management.
Multinational clients include Abbott Labs, Shearing Plough, Kimberly-Clark
and Kennametal. Integreyted’s international revenue has increased
50% to amount to 25% of their business.
Locus Technologies for
developing LocusFocus, an Internet-based suite of applications
for remote operation of groundwater treatment facilities, managing
environmental data, using handheld data collection and transfer
devices, document storage and on-line collaboration.
Integrate for launching a web-based version
its TerraBase application for environmental technical data management.
Among the customers of the new web-based approach are Waste Management.
Emerson Process Management
for its SmartProcess optimization software that uses models
and artificial intelligence to portray cost of generation and
emissions performance for power companies across a fleet of generating
stations. The system has forecasted SO2 compliance issues, optimized
limestone usage in scrubbers, managed NOx emissions and supported
emissions reductions and the generation of trading credits in
both SO2 and NOx.
HOMELAND SECURITY
AWARDS
In what we
hope is an only-in-2002 category, the following companies are
recognized for developing products or services relating to immediate
needs in homeland security.
Marasco Newton Group,
an SRA International company, for its work in developing
the new emergency response plan for the Washington Council of
Governments, including water supply safety; coordinating the region’s
disaster response drills for federal, state, district and 17 jurisdictional
governments; and serving as the prime contractor for EPA’s chemical
and emergency preparedness program.
Strategic Diagnostics Inc.
for rapidly deploying the Microtox technology it acquired from
Azur Environmental in 2001 to water quality security applications.
Used predominantly for wastewater and research prior to 9/11,
SDI developed additional protocols and application notes and as
of the end of 2002 Microtox is being used by more than 50 major
drinking water utilities across the country.
The cleanup of the World Trade Center site and the Pentagon after
the 9/11 attacks involved at least 50 environmental companies,
and ongoing monitoring, security and anti-terrorism projects continue
to involve at least 100 more. Needless to say these are too many
companies to list independently, but the U.S. environmental industry—and
these companies in particular—deserve recognition for their responsiveness
and ingenuity in solving such immediate and high-profile problems
in a time of national need.
And on that somewhat somber note of industry flag-waving, we conclude
the 2002 EBJ awards. Tune in next year!
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About EBJ Business Achievement Awards
EBJ solicited the industry via email, website and word-of-mouth
for 200-word nominations for the 2002 EBJ awards. Awards were
determined by an internal committee and selected advisory board
members. Congratulations to the 2002 winners and EBJ encourages
all interested companies to participate next year. (Disclaimer:
Company audits were not conducted to verify information or claims
submitted with nominations.)
This article appeared in Environmental Business Journal Volume
XV No.7/8 2002
List
of Award Recipients
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