Global Environmental & Industrial Response was launched in Bartow, Florida during the tail end of 2020 with a desire to provide environmental and industrial services to the Florida market. The enterprise has succeeded beyond its founders’ expectations, expanding its service footprint globally and growing to a $24 million company this year.
The company was founded by four majority owners, Todd Stepp, Steve McLaren, Tom Putnum and Chris Sappington. Both Putnum and Sappington are working team members involved in the company’s day-to-day operations.
“The owners felt that although the environmental market in the state was adequately served, they could bring a greater focus on service to the industry,” says Nick Soucy, director of business development with Global. “But they also believed that the industrial side of the market was underserved and they intended to use that market as the basis to grow the business.”
STARTING SMALL
The company launched operations with three employees, a Guzzler industrial vacuum loader and a handful of personal pickup trucks. In the interim years, the company’s business office moved to nearby Mulberry, retaining its Bartow home base. Global opened new offices in Tampa in 2021 and Fort Lauderdale in 2023. The company now employs a workforce of 140.
Global’s work runs approximately 30% environmental and 70% industrial — in-plant services and agricultural enterprises usually scheduled around plant maintenance breaks. The main service categories offered by the company are hydroblasting and vacuum services; environmental cleanup and waste transportation and disposal; sulfuric acid tower maintenance and neutralization and catalyst screening and handling.
Clients served by Global include utilities, municipalities, mining companies, phosphate and fertilizer plants, chemical plants, food and beverage plants, pulp and paper mills, manufacturing plants, oil and gas wells and refineries, automotive manufacturers, consultants and engineers.
Guzzlers are used in industrial and vacuum excavation applications for the company.
“We also do a lot of liquid vacuum truck pumping,” Soucy says. “This includes monitoring wells, pumping out chemical tanks, cleaning out petroleum tanks, industrial cleaning and handling, transportation and disposal of hazardous and nonhazardous bulk waste. There’s also line jetting.”
Some of the company’s work involves one-off contracts, but some Global crews service the same industrial plants for their entire work week, 52 weeks per year.
EMERGENCY RESPONSE
The company also offers rapid emergency response for spills, biohazard service, decontamination service, vessel recovery for marine disasters and other environmental emergencies. Many of those emergencies involve in-plant response to chemical or petrochemical spills, from dry material to liquids and sludges. A smaller number of emergencies involve other spills, such as highway incidents, septic overflow, and even nonhazardous materials that have spilled from overturned trucks, or a damaged industrial bulk bag pierced by a forklift. Emergency staff are on call 24/7 with teams rotated onto the emergency roster in turn.
“It’s unusual for two days to go by without at least one call for emergency spill response,” Soucy says. “We always say that we’re the guys you never want to call, but when you do call, we’ll respond in a hurry.”
Global is frequently contracted for debris and spill removal following storms, with crews ramping up to as many as 80 people. Following a hurricane, for example, the company offers waste and debris cleanup and disposal, gas and chemical spill response, vacuum truck and hydroblasting services to help plants recover from the storm, environmental remediation and sewer drain cleaning.
Global established a mobile command center in 2021 to provide on-site coordination. It’s a 53-foot trailer converted into a mobile office, which is transported by truck to disaster and other sites.
“Following Hurricane Idalia in August 2023, for example, we worked all over the northern part of Florida into south Georgia removing 350 tons of spoiled food from big box stores,” Soucy says. “That contract lasted a full week.”
In another incident in 2023, Global responded to a call from Florida Highway Patrol, when a 120-gallon diesel oil spill shut down traffic on a state highway.
“The oil got all over the asphalt and into the median,” Soucy says. “We cleaned up all the diesel fuel and then did a 6-inch scrape of the soil in the median.”
Global offers a dozen vacuum trucks. These include: a 2019 Peterbilt with a 3,000-gallon steel tank and Presvac pump from GapVax; a 2020 Peterbilt with a 3,200-gallon stainless steel tank and Whispair/Presvac pumps, built out by Presvac; a pair of 2020 Peterbilts with 3,600-gallon stainless steel tanks and Ingersoll Rand pumps built out by Keith Huber; a pair of 2020 Peterbilts with 3,600-gallon steel tanks and Ingersoll Rand pumps built out by Keith Huber; a 2016 International jetter with 1,500-gallon steel tank and Whispair pump, built out by Vac-Con; and a 2021 Peterbilt with 3,200-gallon stainless steel tank and Presvac pump, built out by Presvac.
The current fleet of Guzzlers, built by Guzzler Manufacturing, includes: a pair of 2023 Internationals with 3,000-gallon steel tanks and Guzzler
Liquid Ring vacuum systems; and a pair of 2024 Internationals with 3,600-gallon stainless steel tanks and pumps by Guzzler and Ingersoll Rand.
WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT
Finding top employees to fill company vacancies remains a priority. Global hosts local job fairs and advertises heavily on social media to secure qualified workers.
“At the entry level, we’re simply looking for someone who is competent, ready to work and willing to put in long hours,” Soucy says. “We’re not a bunch of Ph.D.s here. We provide the tutelage and the training so they can be rewarded for safely providing a skilled service.”
Soucy also entered the environmental service industry in 2000 at an entry level.
“I walked in not knowing a thing, but I found two solid mentors and asked about anything they were willing to teach me,” he recalls. Moving up the ranks at Global similarly requires team members to take the initiative to learn about the scope of work offered by the company and to develop exemplary customer service skills.
“They need a great work ethic, understand what it is to be on time and achieve benchmarks on projects,” Soucy says. “Issues arise on this type of work, so they need a capacity to troubleshoot and communicate effectively with the customer.”
The company’s safety training program is rigorous, including first aid, CPR, Occupational Safety and Health Administration 30-hour training, hazardous waste operations and emergency response, hazard communication, confined-space entry and aerial lift safety.
Global takes this one step further with a commitment to transparency through third-party compliance service providers ISNetworld and Avetta.
Through portals provided by these services, customers and suppliers are given full online access to the company’s: health, safety, and environmental questionnaires; insurance certificates; OSHA forms; experience modification rate; written health, safety and environmental programs; training information; reports of hours and incidents by month; and cybersecurity information. ISNetworld clients are rated anywhere from a top grade of “A” to “F.” Global currently has an A rating.
“Some of our larger clients need to see this information as a condition of establishing a contract with them,” Soucy says. “But we feel it’s worthwhile to let everyone know that our safety and compliance record is vetted by an outside party.”
The company advertises heavily and maintains a consistent presence at trade shows. One of the company’s more interesting promotions involved sponsorship of a truck in the monster truck circuit.
“The growth we experienced in 2022 was an exciting period for the company,” Soucy says. “Right now, we’re a $24 million company. We feel as though we’re ready to bust through that next level of growth. But we want to make sure that we don’t expand the scale of the business too rapidly.”
Part of the plan involves solidifying the markets at each of the Florida locations. With environmental work increasing, Global is seeing enough customer requests to support the purchase of at least another pair of vacuum trucks.
“We’re mindful that Florida is our home for environmental services,” Soucy says. “At the same time, we’re working to expand our international brand. Global was never just a name — it’s always represented our ambitions.”
