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Fort Worth Business Press
For more information, email
bjr@envtrainers.com
Richards, the company's president, has more than 10 years'
experience in environmental science consulting and training.
Sullivan, who holds the title of vice president, has more than 12
years' experience. Putting their expertise together led them to open
their on-site training business for land, air and water issues in
June.
 Richards said all environmental consultants must go
through training every year to maintain professional certifications
and licenses. So she and Sullivan decided to start a company that
provides the courses consultants, industries and governmental
agencies need to complete to retain their professional status.
Richards said the company started to take shape when she and
Sullivan starting talking about the opportunity to teach and how
much both of them enjoy teaching and training others. With all their
experience in training, they believed they had winning combination
and needed to start their own business.
Richards and Sullivan
received help with their start-up business through the Fort Worth
Business Assistance Center.
"They were very helpful on
getting things done for us," Richards said.
Richards said
taking part in the BAC's 2001 Entrepreneur Expo gave them the push
they needed to go out on their own. Seeing and listening to all the
entrepreneurs there motivated them and convinced them to take the
step into the entrepreneurial world. The business was in the works
for a total of nine months before launching, but Richards said they
didn't get serious until after the expo.
"The expo was
really good. In fact, I have to say that is what convinced me to do
this," Richards said. "It was very inspiring. We were pretty
convinced that we were smart enough to do this and we could make it
work, and the opportunity certainly was there.
 "After I got
through with the expo, there was no doubt we were going to do this.
There is enough assistance out there and enough experience and
enough other folks that have done it that I know we can make it
work."
Richards said they did research before the expo on
other environmental training providers all across the country
because there is a large number of such firms. They discovered there
weren't very many woman-owned companies in that group.
"In
the research we did, we only found four in the entire country, and
we did not find any minority-owned firms that were doing the
training out there at all."
When doing the research, they
also looked at the courses the other firms were providing and
compared that to what they knew their clients would need. Richards
said they realized there are many classes out there that companies
are searching for but can't find because most training providers
don't offer them.
"Other firms will offer classes in
environmental regulations, hazwoper (hazardous waste operations and
emergency response) and confined space, and that is about it," she
said. "Our clients are looking for classes on how to teach someone
to do a phase I environmental site assessments or the storm water
rules that are coming into effect for all the small and mid-size
municipalities. And those municipalities typically don't have
environmental staff, and they don't have any way go out and get
information on what it is they are going to have to do."
Richards said she and Sullivan knew they would be able to provide
those kinds of classes for their clients. Their clients include
people in the environmental consulting industry, municipalities,
government agencies as well as industrial clients.
 Currently some of Environmental Trainers' clients include: Carter &
Burgess Inc., Freese and Nichols Inc., Law Gibb Group, D/FW
International Airport, the Fort Worth Transportation Authority (the
T) and Trinity Engineering/Kleinfleder.
ETI's training and
consulting expertise includes: brownfields redevelopment; compliance
audits; confined space; dry cleaners assessments; environmental
regulations; hazwoper; hazardous materials management; indoor air
quality/mold; phase I environmental site assessments; phase II
environmental site assessments; phase II storm water rules;
pollution prevention; Section 404 of the Clean Water Act; SPCC/spills;
storm water in construction; underground storage tanks; and VCP/IOP/TRRP.
Richards said the company has landed several certifications vital to
its success. They have received woman or disadvantaged business
enterprise (DBE) certification through the North Central Texas
Regional Certification Agency, Historically Underutilized Business
(HUB) certification through the General Services Commission,
women-owned business and small business certification through the
Small Business Administration and precertifications for TxDOT work.
"We are real excited about having those certifications because I
think we bring something to the table that for training that a lot
of companies have to do any way," Richards said. "We are able to
provide them an opportunity to use a woman-owned business, and they
are able to get that credit through their audits each year for their
small, minority-owned participation."
Contact Letsche at
aletsche@bizpress.net.
© Fort Worth Business Press 2001
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