Share this
Twitter
Myspace
Digg
Del.icio.us
Reddit
Slashdot
Furl
Yahoo
Technorati
Newsvine
Facebook
Export PDF
Print
E-mail
Tags
BY JOE TYRRELL
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
Working summers at an environmental consulting firm while in college, Kiran Gill enjoyed the both the research and operations side of the business and its sales and financial aspects.
So much so that a year after graduating from New York University in 2002, the Robbinsville resident put her savings together with a loan from her uncle and bought the company.
Since then, Gill has taken PARS Environmental from six employees to more than 45. Annual sales have jumped from $500,000 to $6 million, including major contracts with federal agencies.
The company's rapid growth has made Gill, just 30, the federal Small Business Administration's Minority Small Business Person of the Year in New Jersey. In turn, she credits the SBA for helping put PARS on the fast track to success.
Unlike many aspiring entrepreneurs, Gill knew exactly what she was getting into and what she wanted to do. Although a graduate of West Windsor High School, New Jersey was just one of several stops in a childhood that included stays in Florida, Toronto and Washington, D.C.
But wherever they were living, the Gills were living with science. Her father was a top executive of Envirogen Technologies, a company now part of the British Amplio Group that supports treatment of groundwater, wastewater, resource recovery and odor control. Her mother ran a laboratory for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration."I really wanted to enter the environmental field," Gill said. "I certainly had a lot of good family support."
Certainly her timing and choice of location were first-rate. The early 21st Century has seen of surge of interest in green technologies and cleaning up past pollution. As the most densely populated state, and the one with the most Superfund clean-up sites, New Jersey is fertile ground for Gill's business.
"There's a lot of potential," she said, but added, "you've really got to differentiate yourself."
One of Gill's early steps was to apply to SBA's 8(a) minority business program. Once PARS got certified in 2004, the firm was eligible to receive sole-source contracts from federal agencies of up to $3.5 million for goods and services and $5.5 million for manufacturing.
In the years since then, the company has landed $4 million in contracts from the U.S. Navy, Army Corps of Engineers, General Services Administration and Environmental Protection Agency. That has supplemented PARS' business with private concerns and state and local governments.
"To get the attention of new clients, we continue to develop new technologies that clean up sites better, faster and less expensively," Gill said.
That's the goal behind the firm's ongoing bio-remediation research projects at EPA's field office in Edison. That includes test plots of various plants, analyzed to see how well they absorb stormwater run-off and its associated excessive nutrients and pollutants.
In a state that "still has a lot to clean-up from the Industrial Revolution," such research is a way to alleviate present problems and avoid future ones, said PARS site manager Clarence Smith. The work can translate into fewer erosion and flooding issues along roads, parking lots and shopping centers, and cleaner drinking water, he said.
While his EPA counterparts develop the research ideas, there is a lot of interplay as projects proceed and data comes in, Smith said. His staff is able to shape the studies "if we determine there's a better way," he said.
For Gill, the firm's progress rests in its nimbleness in developing proprietary technologies "and our willingness to take on difficult remediation projects." Although much of the work remains in New Jersey, PARS now has contracts at sites in California and elsewhere as Gill follows her plan to make it a national firm.
Working with the SBA has been useful not just on the revenue side, but obtaining advice and mentoring on how to run and advance the business, she said.
"Kiran Gill is a prime example of how SBA programs can assist in the growth of minority small businesses," said Jim Kocsi, SBA's New Jersey district director.
But he admits credit is due on the other end, saying he is "amazed" that Gill "purchased a well-established company where she worked as a summer intern and took it to the next level."
Even with her government contacts and contracts, Gill acknowledged these can be difficult times for any small business. To her, though, that validates the emphasis on developing new approaches, to "show a client a more efficient and more cost-effective way of solving a problem."
For Smith, the attraction of the business is obvious, "it's improving the environment in the State of New Jersey."
Joe Tyrrell may be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
