While businesses everywhere are struggling to survive the worst economic conditions in decades, and accounts of bankruptcies and factory layoffs are commonplace, one local manufacturer is continuing to experience exponential growth.

Environmental Dynamics, run by an old-school Missouri engineer who still uses a Dictaphone, makes energy-efficient water and wastewater treatment systems in a modest building on Paris Road and sells them around the world. With a 40 percent increase in sales this year, the company’s workforce is about to surpass 100.

In 2007, Inc. magazine recognized Environmental Dynamics as one of the 5,000 fastest growing companies in America. EDI’s aeration technology and engineering systems have landed them at the number two spot in the world for the niche industry. The number one spot is held by a division of a multi-billion dollar company, ITT.

“They’re number one at the moment, but we’re about to catch them on aeration,” said EDI founder and president Chuck Tharp.

Tharp, with his cousin, M. Clark Campbell, founded EDI in 1975 with four employees in a 1,600-square-foot facility on I-70 Drive Southeast. Sales that first year barely reached $20,000.

Today, EDI has 96 employees in its 110, 000 square-foot facility on a 14-acre campus on Paris Road. For 2008, EDI has booked sales in excess of $32 million, up nearly 40 percent over 2007.

Tharp, who has a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from the University of Missouri-Rolla and a master’s degree in environmental engineering from the University of California-Berkeley, bought out his cousin’s share of the business in 1993 when EDI moved to the Paris Road location.

EDI’s sales began their meteoric rise when Tharp began looking into expanding into the global market.

“In the U.S., the most basic treatments have already been constructed and only need expansion, upgrading or repair,” Tharp explained. “In developing countries, there’s nothing there. You can sell them the whole shooting match.”

Since venturing into the export business with the help of the University of Missouri, the State of Missouri and the U.S. Department of Commerce, EDI has manufactured and delivered more than 5,000 wastewater treatment systems to 86 countries.

In 2007, EDI prepared the Beijing Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plant for the 2008 summer Olympics in China, similar to the work they did in Sydney, Australia for the 2000 games. More than 50 percent of EDI’s sales are export sales, and sales to China and India make up 8 to 10 percent of that number.

“Environmental concerns are now becoming more significant to developing countries,” Tharp said.

In 2004, EDI revised its marketing strategy to further differentiate the company from its competitors.  EDI  moved to a value-added, service-based marketing model rather than just trying to market plastic, rubber, pipes and hardware. At any one time, EDI may be working on 3,000 active projects. Of those, Tharp said, roughly two-thirds will eventually result in sales.

The strategic shift from marketing hardware to marketing innovative solutions has been crucial to EDI’s success with environmental industry decision-makers, according to Tharp.

“If you approach sales on the lowest cost-the cheapest piece of rubber or plastic, we can’t compete on that basis, worldwide,” Tharp said. “Basically, we design and supply aeration systems and configure it to offer energy savings.”

EDI director of operations Fred McCabe said, “We match the amount of air needed to treat a system with the appropriate style of diffuser to meet certain requirements and shoot for the highest transfer efficiency.”

The capital costs of buying and installing aerator systems is high. The key, according to Tharp and McCabe, is to reduce the energy necessary to operate the aeration system.

“The only way to get the air to the system is horsepower,” McCabe said.  “We try to calculate it so customers use as little air as possible.”

Since research shows that the energy costs to operate a wastewater treatment plant can exceed 70 percent of the total cost of operation. EDI promises that their aerator diffuser systems can offset the purchase price through increased energy savings within a few years.

In addition to implementing the value added marketing strategy, EDI has, since its inception, been a leader in innovation and design. Modest about the number of patents, EDI holds, Tharp said, “We don’t really have a research department like a university. We’ve been pretty much steady on developing, and we beat it to death ‘till you get something you can sell.’ We’re more applied research.”

EDI has two water tanks at their Paris Road facility to test and showcase their various products. “I guess we have about 20 basic products, but we have hundreds of configurations of those products,” Tharp said. The plant also houses all the corporate offices, an assembly, packaging and shipping area and a warehouse. Tharp estimates that EDI ships 300 to 400 sea containers annually and that doesn’t include the domestic sales, which travel by truck or rail.

Although EDI is still in expansion mode as far as hiring and sales, Tharp does not see an immediate need to expand the facility.

“I just made a substantial offer to someone to become my general sales manager and I’m still probably short four or five technical folks,” Tharp said. “The size of the plant is okay. I would go to another shift if needed.”

When asked to name some of his favorite projects, Tharp said, “The ones I’ve been paid for are always good ones. I’d guess the city of Dallas would be one of our biggest ones. We also did the city of Istanbul in Turkey. I guess the smaller ones are snacks and the bigger ones are a full meal.”

To accommodate global customers, EDI has publications, product catalogues, Web portal sites and promotional CDs in several languages, including Chinese, Japanese, Spanish and German.

Tharp has managed to guide his company into the 21st century global economy without a personal computer or cell phone. “I don’t use computers myself. I have a cell phone, but I don’t like it,” he said. “I use a Dictaphone. E-mail is just an opportunity to get yourself in trouble; there’s no personality in an e-mail.”

“Frankly, I think its one of the reasons we’re successful,” Tharp said.  “I write all my letters on letterhead and when you call here, you get a real live person on the phone.”

Despite the dire predictions for the global economy’s future, Tharp and EDI are not seeing any slowdowns nor expecting any.  Tharp said, “the global situation for environmental control is growing. We’ve gotten big enough that we’re a staple in the industry. We’ve seen so many sites that we can optimize pretty quickly and we’re working our can off.”

How it Works

EDI, aeration and the environment

EDI manufactures the membranes, either in pipe or disc shapes, which are punctured with thousands of tiny holes, through which air passes.  Customer specifications dictate the type of diffusers used and the lay-out of the system.

The majority of EDI’s customers are wastewater treatment plants, plants that remove human or animal effluent from the water in a confined area before the water is released into another water supply. EDI also designs aeration diffuser systems for animal facilities, aquaculture, industrial plants, food manufacturers-any process which uses large amounts of water that have an organic by-product introduced during the process. Aeration speeds the process of breaking down the organic matter in the water.

In the air diffusion process, air is introduced from blowers through diffusion tubes or discs, which are typically suspended in or on the bottom of the treatment basin or tank.

An ample oxygen supply in wastewater is the key to rapid and effective wastewater treatment. Oxygen is needed by the bacteria to allow their respiration reactions to proceed rapidly. Without sufficient oxygen being present, bacteria are not able to quickly biodegrade the incoming organic matter.

EDI manufactures “fine bubble” aeration systems, as opposed to the “course bubble” systems originally used by many treatment plants. Using the fine bubble system requires no more energy and is more efficient. If a given volume of air is broken into large bubbles, while an equal amount of air is broken into small bubbles, the smaller bubbles will create a greater opportunity for oxygen to transfer into the water.

As the number of bubbles increase, the available surface area over which air can be transferred into water also increases. Fine bubbles are much more efficient at transferring air.  Also, since fine bubbles provide larger total surface area, they create more friction and rise slower than coarse bubbles.

Environmental Dynamics
5601 Paris Road
573-474-9456