Highlands
Environmental Solutions—Small
Business Profile
Premium content from Triangle Business
Journal - by Lee Weisbecker
Date: Monday, June 15, 2009, 12:00am
EDT
RALEIGH – Until the recession
took hold, Raleigh environmental consultancy
Highlands Environmental Solutions
was on track for a $1 million year.
Business has slowed, but company founder
and CEO Joe Beaman has discovered
rays of sunlight in the storm clouds.
The 6-year-old, six-person firm began
to get calls from banks foreclosing
on property, especially on tracts
of commercial real estate. The bankers
wanted HES to examine the parcels
for contaminants, underground or otherwise,
before putting the properties back
on the market.
 “They
don’t like to be surprised when
they sell,” says Beaman. “We’ve
been noticing more and more calls
like that in the last few months.”
Beaman is a Charlotte transplant
who studied geology at the University
of North Carolina at Charlotte and
later got a master’s degree
in the subject at the University of
South Carolina, specializing in hydrogeology.
After that he landed jobs with two
environmental consultancies –
one a medium-sized firm, the other
an international concern – racking
up a dozen years experience before
incorporating HES in 2003.
He admits the transition to independent
status was a leap. “It was scary,”
he recalls. “But it has worked
out. We’ve been growing at a
rate of 49 percent a year …
It has gotten slower with the recession
… but it’s been a tough
year for everyone.”
The company has grown by offering
a range of services to a range of
clients. Bank foreclosure work is
only the latest twist.
“We don’t want to be niched”
is how Beaman describes it.
HES clients extend south to Florida
and north to Pennsylvania. Within
North Carolina, the list includes
names from Wilmington to Asheville.
The firm works with large trucking
firms and insurance carriers, such
as Liberty and Zurich, to review claims
after chemical spills. It works with
land developers to review water and
drainage proposals – a line
of business that’s slowed recently,
Beaman says.
HES removes underground storage tanks
from abandoned gas stations and other
sites; it drafts remediation plans
to clean up gas and oil spills, leaked
dry cleaning fluids and metals.
When summoned, Beaman and his team
will even roll out to the site of
an overturned tanker to clean up the
mess. It performed just that function
in January 2008, when up to 4,000
gallons of gas and diesel fuel leaked
from an oil company tank into a canal
in the Johnston County community of
Kenly, requiring an evacuation.
Agents from the U.S. Environmental
Protection agency ended up by complimenting
the work of HES, telling a reporter
for The Kenly News: “A lot of
credit is due to the responders. They
made the right calls, notified the
right people and got the residents
out (of harm’s way).”
The price tag on such jobs can range
from $1,500 to $250,000. The time
required to do the work can range
from hours or days to weeks, but one
of HES’ selling points, Beaman
says, is its practice of trying to
put a precise exit time on the jobs
it undertakes.
Annual revenue averaged about $500,000
over the company’s first years.
Last fall, despite the race into recession,
the company added three staffers,
all with lengthy experience in environmental
assessments, regulatory affairs, field
investigations, insurance and related
work. It also doubled its office space
at the North Quarter Office Park in
north Raleigh.
Looking down the road, Beaman says
most independent consultancies such
as his grow an office to six to 10
people before looking to open a satellite
location in another favorable market.
HES, he adds, will look to do the
same, perhaps in Virginia, where the
company has a growing list of clients.
“We have every intention of
growing,” he says, but there’s
no timetable.
In the image: Joe Beaman and
Sandy Miller, a project manager with
his company, collect soil samples
for testing.
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