Copyright 7/13/98 - Kathy Knight-McConnell
message board set up on ragingbull.com where more information that
could not be included here has been posted. Please join us there to discuss
the merits of this company.
Kathy Knight-McConnell
INDUSTRIAL ECOSYSTEMS INC.
Ticker: IECS (OTC:BB)
Address: Rockaway Beach Plaza
450 Dondee Way
Suite 10
Pacifica, CA 94044
Phone: 415-355-4050
Fax: 415-355-4517
Shares outstanding: 30,000,000 approx.
Float: 15,500,000 (most of the float appears to be in friendly hands, approx.
4 million shares are free trading)
Restricted shares are approx. 48%
Insiders hold approx. 3%
The company's Common Stock was reverse split on a 2:3 shares ratio effective
April 29, 1998
Transfer Agent: American Transfer & Trust, Coral Gables, FL 305-668-6547
Market Makers: MASH, GVRC, PGON, WIEN, NITE, SHWD, AGII, NAWE, FAHN, HILL,
SHRP, SPCC, HRZG, FRAN, FLSC
Executives:
Walter Kolbe - Chairman and CEO
Gerard Amlin - President and Chief Operating Officer
Jack Wilson - Vice-President
John Glennon - Controller
Directors of Industrial Ecosystems: Walter Kolbe, Jack Wilson, and Gerard
Amlin
Directors of ROP North America: John Crowe - Chairman, Fred Rice & Walter
Kolbe - Board Members
Investor Relations - Jeff Feld, 888/582-3810
After checking out the resumes' of the executives of Industrial Ecosystems I
was thoroughly pleased to see that they have between them a wealth of
experience in their chosen field and are highly qualified to bring Industrial
Ecosystems Inc. to a unique position in the forefront of their industry.
Executive Qualifications:
Walter Kolbe (Chairman and CEO) holds a Masters of Science in Environmental
Management, the University of San Francisco. He has twenty years experience in
environmental cleanup, including many years managing all of the wastewater
operations east of the Rocky Mountains and West of the Mississippi River he
also managed 82 employees and an $8.1 million annual budget for Professional
Services Group. He was responsible for the operations of Biosystems
Management International ("BMI"), the largest sludge handling firm in the
Western United States. Major operations included San Francisco, Portland and
Reno. At BMI he started up a rail transport and land reclamation project
unique in scope and technology use. As majority stockholder and President of
Environmental Protection Company, Mr. Kolbe was instrumental in signing a
service contract with a major oil company in the first 6 months of operation.
He engineered the merger of Environmental Protection Company into a public
company (Industrial Ecosystems Inc.) which he organized into its cleanup and
recycling divisions. In previous positions Mr. Kolbe has managed as many as
200 employees and been responsible for annual budgets in excess of $30 million
as well as over $1 billion in pollution control infrastructure.
Gerard Amlin (President and Chief Operating Officer) career spans over 15
years of experience in agriculture-related research, recycling, organic
materials processing and environmental conservation. Mr. Amlin has proven his
intense desire to establish profitable and feasible solutions to a wide
variety of problems directly related to waste disposal and abatement. He
earned the opportunity to act as an independent consultant to Agriculture
Canada in the search and development of detoxification systems for
contaminated organic foodstuffs for which he achieved major strides at turning
them into fully usable feedstuff. From 1984 to the present he has been a
research and development lecturer for the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and
Food, conducting periodic seminars on new technologies for grain roasting and
swine production. He was Founder and President of the North American Grain
Roasting Association from 1984 to 1989 and also the Founder of the Agri Serve
which pioneered mobile grain recycling services and equipment. As
Owner/Manager of his own company from 1973 to 1983, Gerard developed and
introduced many new swine production concepts within Ontario including the
first controlled liquid manure storage disposal system, a total
confinement/environmentally controlled production facility for recovering and
recycling of feed ingredients.
Jack Wilson (Vice President) has a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology. He designed
the marketing strategy for the CRR Division of Industrial Ecosystems.
Additionally he has served as Sr. Project Manager for new projects including
Union Oil of California (d.b.a. UNOCAL) Santa Maria, CA and The Oil and
Natural Gas Corporation of India at Uran, India. Mr. Wilson's prior
experience was as a video producer in the environmental technology field,
including major projects for Southeast Waste Water Treatment Facility, Norcal
Solid Waste and Oceanside Wastewater Treatment Facility.
John Glennon (Controller) holds a Bachelor of Arts-Major Accounting with 28
years experience. Since coming to Industrial Ecosystems Inc. He has
established new procedures and controls. Over the last 28 years he has worked
as an internal auditor, treasurer and controller for five large companies and
acted as the treasurer of a charitable foundation.
In June 1996, Industrial Ecosystems Inc. received the "Best Environmental
Project" award as noted in Hart's Oil and Gas World trade publication.
Articles about IEI's process have been published in two major trade magazines,
the Oil & Gas Journal (January 1995, pages 85-88) and Civil Engineering (May
1995, pages 80-81).
"This is bioremediation at its best; fast, effective, and cost efficient."
Civil Engineering
"(Industrial Ecosystem's Inc.'s) natural & augmented bioremediation provides
safe, environmental, fast and effective solution for removing hydrocarbon
stains from soil." Oil & Gas Journal
On June 8, 1998,IEI announced its first ever profitable quarter due to a 67%
increase in revenue in this year's first quarter. "This is just the
beginning,'' said Walter Kolbe, CEO. "With our current backlog of business
from major U.S. oil companies and the recent elimination of a sizable R&D
expense, we look forward to prolonged growth of both sales and earnings.'' At
the current pace, the company anticipates doubling its revenue this year. This
remarkable growth, coupled with an award-winning proprietary process,
positions IECS as a leader in its industry.
This company is now in the process of being audited to secure SEC filing
status with the aim of being fully reporting by the end of the year and will
seek full NASDAQ listing at the appropriate time. The company's Common Stock
was reverse split on a two shares for three shares ratio effective April 29,
1998 in an effort to make the stock more attractive to potential investors and
to create a more stable stock.
On Jan. 29, 1998, Industrial Ecosystems, Inc. announced the receipt of
$500,000 (CAD) in financing through an equal combination of debt and equity.
The Bank of Montreal loaned the company $250,000 CAD towards the upgrade of
its Amherstburg ROP (Recovered Organic Products) plant. In addition, the
company closed on a $250,000 (CAD) private placement of restricted stock.
There was to be a larger financing, but the company decided that they had
enough cash flow through their earnings to forego taking on any additional
debt.
Industrial Ecosystems is currently performing work in India under a strategic
alliance with Tetra Tech and is working with them to make a cleanup agreement
with the DOD. Tetra Tech is a multidisciplinary environmental engineering
firm, providing engineering and consulting services to solve complex
environmental problems. Tetra Tech's specialties include surface and
groundwater investigations, environmental assessments, remedial
investigations/feasibility studies for hazardous waste sites, and model
development. Tetra Tech's clients include the U.S. Department of Defense, the
U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the
Electric Power Research Institute, private corporations, and state and local
government agencies. Members of Tetra Tech's staff are nationally recognized
experts in key technical areas such as hazardous waste management, water
quality, human health and ecological risk assessment, hydrogeology, modeling
(chemical fate and transport, ecosystem, water quality, and hydrodynamics),
GIS, environmental auditing, database development, permit compliance,
remediation engineering, health and safety, and remedial design.
On September 10, 1996, Industrial Ecosystems Inc. (IEI) announced a strategic
alliance with
Nuchem Limited of Faridabad, India, to provide oil field clean-up services
utilizing IEI's award winning bioremediation technology. The company's primary
target was the Oil and Natural Gas Commission (ONGC) of India which controls
over 80% of India's oil and gas operations. Nuchem
has established contacts within the industry. Additionally, ONGC indicated in
writing the desire to participate in a bioremediation demonstration.
A quote from a letter on the ONGC project in India dated March 2, 1998, which
said, "Very pleased with results, in particular your efforts in working with
local labor and materials. Tetra Tech India Limited will work with your
company in marketing this process to ONGC and other clients in India." This
demonstrates the success of the project demonstration.
On March 24, 1998, Industrial Ecosystems Inc. announced a new joint venture,
called ROP North America, to expand its program for recovering organic by
products for animal feed ingredients. The new joint venture company has the
exclusive rights to develop the ROP program in Canada, the United States and
Mexico. John Crowe of JFJ Ecosystems, has contributed $2 million USD to ROP
North America for a 19% stake in the new entity's common stock with IECS
owning the other 81%. Initially, JFJ Ecosystems and Industrial Ecosystems will
share equally in the profits with IECS having an option to increase its share
of the profits to 81%. The combination of John Crowe's experience and IEI's
technology will lead this company into the next century as the front runner in
organic byproducts recovery.
Further significant news was released on June 22, 1998 - Industrial
Ecosystems Inc. announced the leasing of a new soil treatment facility, in the
town of Windsor, Canada from prominent Ontario developer William Docherty,
Director of A&D Holdings. This will allow IEI to increase capacity two-fold
and will provide entry into the distressed real estate market. Mr. Docherty
will be working closely with IECS to create a brisk business in an area with
virtually no competition or upfront expense. In a remarkable display of
confidence, Mr. Docherty,, decided to take lease payments in the form of a
small percentage of IECS's on-site revenue. The ten acre remediation facility
was slated to begin operations the following week. The new property is just
across the river from Detroit and gives the company a whole new range of
clients from Chrysler to HJ Heinz (which has shown a clear interest in IEI's
ROP Program).
The Company has plans for involvement with Brownfields and which ties in
nicely with the Docherty agreement:
Brownfields Pilots - Since fiscal year 1995, EPA has provided funding to 157
states, cities, towns, counties, and tribes for Brownfields Assessment
Demonstration Pilots. The Pilots, each funded at up to $200,000 over two
years, will test redevelopment models, direct special efforts toward removing
regulatory barriers without sacrificing protectiveness, and facilitate
coordinated site assessment, environmental cleanup and redevelopment efforts
at the federal, state, and local levels. These funds will be used to generate
interest by bringing together community groups, investors, lenders,
developers, and other affected parties to address the issues of cleaning up
sites contaminated with hazardous substances and returning them to
appropriate, productive use. The pilots will serve as vehicles to explore a
series of models for states and localities struggling with such efforts.
For information on Brownfields check this link:
epa.gov
INDUSTRIAL ECOSYSTEMS INC. (IEI) is a By-product and Reclamation Management
Company providing organic waste services utilizing value added technologies.
Its goal is to develop its two main divisions (Cleanup, Remediation and
Reclamation (CRR) division, and the Recovered Organic Products (ROP)
division). There are many synergistic overlaps between the two divisions.
Wherever one division establishes a regional or municipal base, it is likely
to become a staging area to jump start activities in the other division. Most
regions have needs for both types of services in their waste streams.
Further, permitting for central site operations can proceed simultaneously.
CRR is hard at work in an effort to open six regional centers over the next
two years. Of these six, three regional centers have already been opened in
San Francisco, CA; Farmington, NM; and Windsor, Ontario. The other three
locations will depend on current discussions the company is having with
various potential partners.
CLEANUP, REMEDIATION AND RECLAMATION DIVISION (CRR) specializes in the
remediation of oil, gas, and unrefined petroleum contaminated soils and also
and provides biosolids and sludge management services. IEI is dedicated to
providing environmentally and economically sound solutions to industrial,
residential, agricultural and commercial land owners who have contaminated
soils by utilizing its proprietary technology and techniques. In both Canada
and the US, the company is actively pursuing clients in the following sectors:
Department of Defense, Oil Industry, Industrial Properties, and the
International Marketplace.
IEI promises to dramatically impact the environmental cleanup market with its
proven processes. Traditional methods of cleanup are often costly and
ineffective. IEI's technology has proven to be less expensive and is
guaranteed to achieve action levels of total petroleum hydrocarbon
contamination (tph) in a fraction of the time that their competitors take and
they address a variety of soil contaminants: Gasoline, Diesel, Asphaltine,
Crude Oil, Aviation Fuel, & Bunker C Oil. The process turns dead earth into a
healthy, nutrient rich soil which will once again support vegetation.
It was announced on December 16, 1997, that the Cleanup, Reclamation and
Remediation (CRR) Division had entered into its fifth year of providing clean
up services for Amoco Oil. The contract has produced over $4 million in
revenue, cleaned up over 400 sites and garnered an environmental award for
both Amoco and IEI. The Amoco work alone should generate in excess of $.02 per
share to the bottom line in 1998. Over the past three years IEI's process has
remediated over 400 crude oil sites for Amoco Oil in Farmington, NM. Some of
the sites with concentration levels as high as 500,000 parts per million
(ppm). Currently, concentration levels of 250,000 ppm are being remediated by
IEI on a regular basis. This proprietary process is quick and effective,
reaching action levels within one to three months.
A partial list of IEI's CRR customers: A.C. Environmental - Alameda Naval Air
Station - Amoco Canada Petroleum Co. Ltd. - Amoco Production Co - Anadarko
Petroleum Corp. - Apache Corp. - Autry C. Stephens - Browning Ferris
Industries (BFI) - Conoco Oil - Curtis Slade - Dugan Oil - Duncan Oil - Gallup
Transport - Horizon Oil - Johnson Inspection Co. - Koch Exploration Co. -
Labato Trucking - National King Coal - Oil & Natural Gas Corp. of India -
Parker & Parsley - Phillips Environmental Services - Questar - R&R Services -
Robert Click Oil - San Francisco Giants Ballpark - Sanwa Bank - Schultz
Enterprise - Torch Petroleum - Tuntex - UNOCAL Oil (Union 76 truck stops and
gas stations) - USF&G Insurance - Williams Field Service.
The market for IEI's technology is worldwide, however its initial focus will
be in the North American market. Over the next five years the CRR Division
will continue to develop its market both at the site location and at a
regional facility.
It is expected that some of the cleanup programs may take up to 30 years to
complete. Most programs will cost in the tens of billions of dollars while
the DOE programs may cost in the hundreds of billions of dollars.
RCRA corrective action includes Superfund sites, hazardous waste treatment
storage and disposal facilities. The Superfund has 36,814 potential cleanup
sites. The estimated average cost per site just for soil remediation is $13.2
millon. There are approx. 5,100 hazardous waste treatment storage and
disposal facilites subject to corrective action. Of these, 1,500 to 3,500
need action at an estimated average cost of $7.2 million per facility. There
are 295,000 underground storage tank sites containing approx. 27 million tons
of soil. It is estimated that average cost is $100,000 per site and that the
potential market could reach $30 billion. DOD has 7,000 sites requiring
cleanup. The sost for soil remediation only is estimated to be approximately
$14 billion. DOE has 110 installations requiring cleanup which is expected to
cost hundreds of billions of dollars. Other federal agencies have 350 sites
requiring cleanup. Funding for a four year period is in excess of $1 billion.
State program sites will exceed the balance of the available funds in the
state Superfund of $2.2 billion. The cleanup of Private party sites is
expected to exceed $1 billion.
The CRR proprietary bioremediation process utilizes a consortium of
microorganisms to bioconvert soil contaminated with petroleum products. This
technology has vastly improved on prior art. The family of enzymes operates
aerobically and anaerobically, and is therefore able to remediate in situ to a
considerable depth, as well as ex situ very economically. This technology has
been tested alongside other methods used by other recognized bioremediation
firms and has been proven to be a significantly more rapid and effective
process than the competition.
On April 7, 1998, IEI announced a contract to provide cleanup services for
Shell Western Oil with the intention of building a long term relationship
between IEI and Shell Western Oil. The company is actively working to expand
its customer base in the oil industry as word spreads about the cost
effectiveness of their process. Shell Western is indicative of the oil
industry. A lot of companies are moving off shore and are having to clean up
the contamination left behind due to the new environmental laws and having to
turn over the properties where they had been pumping and processing oil.
On April 17, 1998, IEI announced that it had been invited by both the Army
Corp of Engineers and the U.S. Navy to present its award-winning clean up
technology to technical committees overseeing $1.5 billion in cleanup efforts
in the San Francisco Bay Area. Company representatives presented its
technology to the Army Corp of Engineers on April 22, 1998 and the U.S. Navy
Western Division on June 29, 1998, who were surprised that Industrial
Ecosystems said they would guarantee their work. There was a great deal of
interest because of their past success and the broad range of contaminants
involved. Through their association with TetraTech the company will work as
subcontractors within existing contracts. IEI is at the epicenter of base
closures and plans to aggressively pursue work for the Department of Defense
this year.
THE RECOVERED ORGANIC PRODUCTS (ROP) DIVISION provides recovery and recycling
of organic waste into poultry and livestock feed and organic fertilizer and
performs mobile on-site processing services. These services utilize
proprietary stabilization processes. Customers of this division include fast
food outlets, livestock producers, industrial, and commercial and
institutional organic waste processors.
IEI has identified approximately 2,000 sites for Recovered Organic Products
facilities of varying sizes, in North America. Organic waste generated
annually in North America is 1.7 billion tons. The market for livestock feed
and fertilizers approximates 1 billion tons per year.
IEI has researched and developed a methodology to recycle and reuse many of
the high quality waste by-products from food processing industry and other
food wastes from commercial and institutional sources. This technology is the
only food-recycling technology to win the support and endorsement of
Agriculture Canada, an arm of the Government of Canada.
As the 20th century comes to a close, industrialized nations of the world have
become increasingly aware of their solid waste problems. It is well known
that traditional disposal methods are wreaking environmental havoc, and that
environmentally sound solutions that blend simple ideas with today's
technology are in great demand. Current disposal practices such as land
filling, incineration, composting and field spreading are not only costly and
time consuming, but they have contaminated the surface and groundwater.
Recovered Organic Products (ROP) is IEI's alternative solution to the
traditional "dumping" mentality. Conceptually, ROP is designed to accept
organic waste and convert the material into a high quality feed ingredient
which will consistently meet the nutritional needs of today's livestock and
pet food manufacturers.
The concept of feeding organic waste to animals is not new, though the ROP
Program is. Through its Quality Assurance and Quality Control (QA/QC), the
ROP program will simultaneously eliminate bacterial eruptions and stabilize
nutrient content. IEI uses proven equipment form the USA, Canada and Europe to
produce a stable and safe feed ingredient. The ROP Program as a disposal
alternative offers advantages to waste generators such as: lower landfill or
other disposal charges - a long-term safe solution to organic waste disposal -
creation of a positive public relations potential as a contributor to
recycling efforts - adoption of the best economical solution to organic waste
disposal - reduction of Directors liability.
Industrial Ecosystems is set to change the way waste generators deal with
organic waste. The ROP program is designed to efficiently produce stable,
high protein livestock feed ingredients at a lower cost compared to
traditional feed ingredients.
On April 30, 1998, IEI announced that Campbell Soup Company of Toronto,
Ontario signed a letter of intent to reserve one third of the capacity of its
joint venture (ROP North America) organic processing plant in Amherstburg,
Ontario, Canada.
On May 1, 1998, IEI announced the initiation of a demonstration project
through its joint venture (ROP North America) with Burger King to recover its
organic waste. This project demonstrates cost control and waste reduction for
Burger King. It also paves the way for increasing farm revenues while
maintaining the highest possible quality control and quality assurance using
wholesome feed delivered in the most efficient manner possible. IECS has
conducted waste audits with Burger King and other fast food restaurants and
has concluded that a large scale recovery program is not only possible, but it
is probable.
On January 15, 1997, IEI announced the commencement of plans to build and
operate a
Recovered Organic Products (ROP) Plant in Amherstburg, Ontario, Canada. The
plant was originally funded by the Bank of Nova Scotia who stipulated that it
had first right of refusal to fund all future plants in Canada. It has been
estimated by the Canadian government that there is a need for over two hundred
(200) ROP Plants across Canada. At the same time the Company also announced
that it had executed a Letter of Intent with Browning Ferris Industries (BFI)
to provide food waste recycling services. BFI is the second largest solid
waste management company in North America with annual revenues in excess of $6
billion.
IEIs CEO, Walter Kolbe, stated "The Amherstburg Plant should be at 50%
capacity its first day because of BFI. The implications are extraordinary for
IEI because of the amount of waste BFI handles, and the potential funding of
other plants by a substantial bank."
On December 16, 1997, IEI announced that the ROP Plant located in Amherstburg,
Ontario, Canada had begun operations that month. COO, Gerard Amlin, stated (at
the time), ''We are so enthused with our initial operations, and interest from
potential customers that we are forging ahead with plans to expand to multiple
sites.''
The facility in Amherstburg is a working farm but it is being developed with
the intent to be utilized as a fully operational training center for
franchised farms in north America. This site is a fully operational ROP hog
farm and also a training center complete with living quarters and computerized
class rooms to aid in training future owner operators of franchised sites.
Additionally, they have installed tanks and other equipment to house their
environmental supplies giving them a central Canadian base of operations for
their remediation work.
IECS purchases piglets approx. two weeks old and raises them to market size.
What is unique about ROP's operation is that they have a proven technology and
the best equipment to process organic waste (food stuff) into a high quality
liquid feed product. The liquid is fed through a computerized system to the
piglets, which develop quickly and are of a much better quality than
conventionally raised stock. It has been estimated that about 70% of the cost
of raising pigs is in the feed. IECS ROP division is paid with tipping fees
for the organic waste (approx. $20-$30 per ton).
In commercial practice the pig is normally weaned at between three and four
weeks of age. It has been used to obtaining most, if not all, of its nutrients
from its mother's milk. Weaning is an abrupt process and in most commercial
units, the piglet is expected to switch from consuming a liquid diet,
delivered warm, at intervals of about 50 minutes by the sow to a dry diet
which is available to it at all times. Unfortunately, many pigs find it
difficult to make this transition. Piglets frequently suffer from dehydration
as it takes them some days to learn to balance their intake of both dry food
and water, without the sow to dictate meal times the piglet often goes for
long periods without eating and then gorges itself on dry feed. At that age a
piglet has neither enzyme activity nor the ability to manufacture adult
quantities of stomach acid. Consequently, when the stomach is loaded with
large quantities of dry food at a single feed stomach pH rises and this in
turn allows potentially harmful bacteria like Escherichia Coli to proliferate.
This can cause diarrhea which at best reduces performance and at worst causes
death of the piglet.
Initial studies have shown that the daily gain of piglets fed on a liquid diet
was 83 g/d greater than their dry fed counterparts. This is very impressive
when it is considered that the dry diet used was one of the best on the
market.
A note of interest - Stockline did a live interview of Walter Kolbe CEO of
IECS. The interview was conducted by Michael Wax at:
stnn.com
NOTE: Although my readers are encouraged to share this information with other
investors, reposting is not permitted without attribution to me.
Copyright 7/13/98 - Kathy Knight-McConnell |
