Everyone pays for pollution. Thousands of petroleum-damaged sites under Florida’s 1999 state cleanup program cost drivers $150 million annually at the pump. Anyone who owns property can be at risk of underground chemicals from their own or adjacent lots. It’s a huge problem, one that Steve Hilfiker, president and owner of Environmental Risk Management, has targeted as a business opportunity.

Now entering his third year in business, Hilfiker reports that company revenues from environmental assessment and remediation projects rose from $200,000 to $480,000 last year. He paid off $50,000 in start-up debt in 18 months. Now cash from the corporate checking account pays the bills.

How did he do it? Several years working for others in the industry taught Hilfiker valuable lessons that he’s quick to maximize and share.

Overhead Savings

“I don’t know why more companies don’t make use of part-time professional staff,” advises Hilfiker. “It makes great business sense.” Seasoned workers are good at what they do, and thrive on the higher pay, flexible hours and variety of regular on-call assignments. Since they’re happy, they stick around. Part-time staff can handle business peaks any month or weekend. Owners need not carry the salaries or office space of full-time employees. Plus, “All hours are 100 percent billable.”

Environmental Risk Management has grown from three to 13 employees, only two of which are full-time, including Hilfiker. Expertise available as needed includes professional engineers, geologists and project managers, field crew and support staff. He covers them under a general liability policy. He also uses subcontractors. On assignment for the Department of Corrections, cleaning up leaking fuel tanks for prison generators, he even employs inmates qualified by good behavior.

“These young men have learned some valuable lessons in their teens. Now they’re ready to get on with their life in their 20s,” observes Hilfiker. “They have some of the best attitudes I’ve seen.”

Hilfiker learned his own lesson about the cost of carrying a large full-time staff when he opened two branch offices for a former employer and found himself scrambling to secure sufficient work. “We never got caught up,” he says.

Timely Persistence

One third of Environmental Risk Management’s 33 current multiyear projects flow in from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP), which has qualified 13,000 sites for petroleum cleanup. Another third come from other state or public entities that need to assess status or reclaim land. The remainder are contracted by insurance companies, banks seeking to recover properties and private owners.

Most buyers are understandably wary of contaminated properties. Yet Hilfiker speculates that every real estate broker knows someone with a contaminated property to sell. A fundamental concern is educating owners and lenders in how to resolve environmental issues, secure financing and insure for manageable levels of risk.

Buyer safeguards range from soil and groundwater sampling to qualifying a site for state funding. Insurance can protect against cost overruns and future discharges. Other insurance covers potential migration of chemicals from neighboring properties. Minimizing a purchase price also helps maximize a property’s ultimate value.

The rewards can be great. Hilfiker notes that, “Land purchased for 50 cents on the dollar can be cleaned up for 25 cents and return 25 cents on every dollar invested.” Today’s profits are possible because late 1990s technology advances lowered remediation costs. “Before, clean-ups tended to be expensive and drawn out or not very successful,” says Hilfiker, who maintains that except in extreme cases, the perceived risk is now higher than the actual risk.

Ultimately, Hilfiker envisions his team orchestrating the entire process, from fee-based site assessments and cleanups to commission-based brokering of property sales and financing. In 2001, Hilfiker took a giant step in securing his real estate brokers license, “the last piece in the puzzle.” He’s now seeking commercial real estate and mortgage brokers to help launch a second company, First Environmental Mortgage.

Again, inspiration for bringing properties, buyers, brokers and lenders together came from past experience. “I was on a conference call making a real estate transaction possible by solving environmental issues that would determine whether or not the deal closed,” says Hilfiker. “I came away with $1,500, while the broker walked away with tens of thousands of dollars. After that, I determined to get my brokers license.”

Elegant Marketing

A non-compete clause, in effect until last May, forced Hilfiker to move outside his comfort zone early. Without hesitation, he extended his assessment business throughout Florida and entered the remediation business. This opened amazing marketing opportunities.

Leveraging savings gleaned from low overhead, Hilfiker has reallocated $30,000 to a statewide marketing program that simultaneously feeds environmental, real estate and mortgage services. The idea is to reap three times the marketing value for every dollar while smoothing a fluctuating workload. He refers to an earlier experience where his marketing efforts boosted an employer’s annual revenues from $100,000 to $500,000.

At last year’s Business 2000 conference, Hilfker had approached the FDEP Bureau Chief with an offer to write an article for the Florida Specifier promoting the state cleanup program. Subsequently, he has contributed nine stories, and frequently interviews the Bureau Chief, who links him with speaking engagements.

This year Hilfiker finished his second term as president of the Florida Environmental Assessors Association where he’ll continue as board member. He plans to serve as moderator for a state remediation conference and qualify a realtor seminar for continuing education units. And he’ll continue making the most of newsletters, telemarketing and direct mail.

In 2001, Environmental Risk Management delivered a clean bill of health to its first client, a Central Florida bank wishing to expand into an adjacent gas station site. “Together, we turned a nightmare into a happy ending,” says Hilfiker. Such success-based referrals and repeat customers account for fully half of company revenues.

For Steve Hilfiker, the payoff for years of on-the-job management lessons, thoughtful planning and hard work is simply “what everyone in the world wants, more time and money — freedom.”