Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, June 13, 1995 TAG: 9506130058
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: STEPHEN FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
As a result, the institute - which provides consulting services and solutions for environmental cleanup problems - will transfer a seven-member staff from its headquarters in Gaithersburg, Md., to Blacksburg and will hire up to 18 more engineers, economists, chemists and other highly paid employees to work at its offices here, said the company's president, Dean Eyman. The company also will build and move into another building in the center by 1996.
The contract calls for the institute to advise the Air Force on cleaning up at bases around the country,
Monday, in what has become a familiar setting for his Southwest Virginia news conferences, Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon, congratulated the company's president and Tech's leaders for their success.
"This award today suggests that there is a very bright future for WPI in helping other federal agencies with their environmental needs," said Boucher, flanked on his left by Eyman, and on his right by Tech President Paul Torgersen and Tech's treasurer and vice president for finance, Ray Smoot.
The Waste Policy Institute, formed in 1989 with three employees and a $700,000 budget, now operates a $35 million yearly budget and employs 137, with about 30 employees in Blacksburg and the rest in Gaithersburg and offices in San Antonio and Moscow.
The biggest job to date for the nonprofit firm had been fulfilling a multiyear contract with the U.S. Department of Energy, advising the department on cleanup procedures for former nuclear-weapons production sites. In 1992, it won a $40 million contract from the department. After contract extensions, that has now translated into a $128 million contract, Eyman said.
The Air Force contract, however, is significant because it represents a "diversification of our contract base [and] represents the very essence of the type of work that WPI was founded to do," Eyman said. The contract also will mean up to 50 new jobs at the institute's San Antonio office.
WPI was awarded the contract along with partners Texas A&M University and J.W. Faucett Associates, Eyman said. WPI will reap 75 percent to 80 percent of the financial rewards of the deal, he said.
When the Waste Policy Institute completes its building, it will mean the park has seen an average of one new building raised every year for the past eight years. Next month will mark the 10th anniversary of Tech's announcing its plans to operate the center, which is home now to more than 100 companies and 600 employees.
"This is exactly the kind of development ... that we hoped would happen here," Smoot said.
by CNB