By George Waldon
Innovate Arkansas and Arkansas Business
11/1/2010

BlueInGreen^®, LLC of Fayetteville has taken big-boy strides to move its innovative technology from the business incubator to market and become a self-sustaining enterprise.

"We're at the point now where hopefully we'll turn our first profit next year and be through the valley of death," said Scott Osborn, BlueInGreen co-founder and chief technology officer.

 

The venture has survived a six-year startup phase and is on track to generate $1 million in revenue in 2010. Sales should top $3 million next year.

 

Joining the increased cash flow will be increased staffing. BlueInGreen will be adding engineers, field technicians and sales personnel to its staff of eight full-timers during the next six months.

 

"The customers now are driving us, and that's a measure of our success," said Marty Matlock, BlueInGreen co-founder and chief scientific officer.

 

The company's Supersaturated Dissolved Oxygen Injection System (SDOX) is its first technology to roll out. The applications include improved operation of municipal and industrial water and wastewater treatment facilities, ecological restoration of lakes and enhanced bioremediation capabilities.

 

The system is touted as a more efficient, less expensive way to boost oxygen levels in water.

 

In the case of wastewater treatment plants, heightened oxygen levels boost the reproduction of waste-munching microbes, and the SDOX system requires less energy to operate and less space, reducing construction and land costs.

 

"We're a new, emerging technology that is clean and green, and people like that," said Clete Brewer, chief executive officer of BlueInGreen.

 

The company received a $175,000 rapid response grant from the National Science Foundation to help with bioremediation of the BP oil spill off the coast of Louisiana.

 

"Mother Nature is taking care of some of these things, but there are some areas that still haven't recovered fully," Brewer said. "We're going to be doing a deployment in the saltwater and also in oyster beds."

 

An oxygen level of 12 milligrams per liter is considered a high naturally occurring level for water. The SDOX system can effectively supercharge the oxygen ratio to as high as 350 milligrams per liter.

 

In that oxygen-rich environment, helpful microbes can propagate at an accelerated pace, speeding the work of breaking down the oil spill's molecule chain.

 

"We'll be able to show that our technology could be used to raise dissolved oxygen levels by treating and recycling water," Brewer said. "The more oxygen in the water, the more bugs can be reproduced to help digest the hydrocarbons.

 

"We'll have a good case study to share with the public and the National Science Foundation."

 

'Revolutionary New Product'

 

The SDOX technology dates back to 1999 when Osborn and Matlock were at Texas A&M University, working on a small demonstration program to restore fisheries at Matagorda, Texas.

 

Replenishing oxygen to support more aquatic life led to the discovery of an efficient method and delivery system for supercharging water with dissolved oxygen.

 

"The meter was shooting up so quickly I literally thought this thing was going to blow up," Osborn said. "That's when it dawned on me that we had something really unique here.

 

"The key is getting this from the lab to commercialization. It took a long time for me to realize that. We knew it had a lot of broad applications, but where do we focus first?"

 

BlueInGreen hopes to replicate the same output of successful demonstrations and pilot programs that launched SDOX for its Hyperconcentrated Dissolved Ozonation (HyDOZ) system.

 

"This is going to be a revolutionary new product for disinfection for wastewater treatment plants," Brewer said. "We hope to do our first pilot at the end of this year or the first of next year."

 

Preliminary studies indicate the technology could save up to 80 percent compared with conventional methods.

 

The system performs the needful tasks of killing the beneficial microbes after their work is done and neutralizing unwanted chemical contaminants that traditional water disinfection methods can't.

 

"There's rarely a Eureka moment with the invention process," Matlock said. "It's usually a transitional, sequential process. We continue to invent to this day, and we have new patents."

 

The BlueInGreen crew envisions sales reaching the point where ramping up its own production facility will make financial sense.

 

For now, the mission is to get the company in a positive cash flow situation, positioned to control its own destiny and not have to rely on outside investors.

 

"The potential is to become a large employer here in Arkansas," Brewer said. "Our primary focus is on getting to scale.

 

"Someone could swoop in and buy technology, but our goal is to eventually manufacture it here."

 

Money Talk

 

During the past five years, the company largely was supported through $2.2 million in grants flowing from the National Science Foundation and National Institute of Health.

 

"The money has allowed us to further refine the technology and get it ready for market," Brewer said.

 

Helping locate funding and provide administrative logistics is the Virtual Incubation Co., a private technology venture development firm based at the University of Arkansas Research & Technology Park in Fayetteville.

 

"They get what we're trying to do," Osborn said, who joined Matlock at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville in 2002. "I don't know if this could've happened in any other place the way it has."

 

"It took some training to become entrepreneurs," said Matlock, who joined the Fayetteville faculty in 2001. "The incubator program helped bridge the gap between academic development and operational business."

 

BlueInGreen began a new round of raising capital in July. Eleven investors are expected to sign on the dotted line, money in hand when the $1.5 million offering closes before Thanksgiving.

 

"We'll be pretty close to that if everyone does what they have said they are going to do," Brewer said.

 

Brewer joined BlueInGreen in March, two months after selling his minority stake in Sports Clips Inc. of Georgetown, Texas. He served as president of the sports-themed hair-care salon franchisor since 2002.

 

"Providing a professional dedicated face is a major thing for us," Matlock said. "Moving to this level is very exciting.

 

"We've been in the startup phase for years, struggling to establish a footing as a real company. We've come through that canyon this year."

 

Brewer is best known for co-founding Fayetteville's StaffMark Inc. (now Edgewater Inc. of Wakefield, Mass.) in 1996 with his father, Jerry. He was president and CEO of StaffMark/Edgewater from 1996 to 2002.

 

His familiarity with BlueInGreen dates back to 2004 when the venture was formed at Virtual Incubation Co., where Brewer was a board member for eight years. His wife, Tammy, was a BlueInGreen investor when the venture raised $250,000 four years ago to help build and market the first SDOX prototype.

 

Even as the company prepares for bigger days ahead, plans are in place to provide the technology to developing countries that can't afford it. Backing that charitable effort will be a set-aside program funded by 2 percent of BlueInGreen's annual profit growth.

 

1999: Supersaturated Dissolved Oxygen Injection System (SDOX) process invented by Scott Osborn and Marty Matlock, engineering professors at Texas A&M University in College Station.

 

2004-06: BlueInGreen LLC formed by Virtual Incubation Co., Osborn and Matlock through the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. VIC helps secure early grants to fund technology development.

 

2006-07: BlueInGreen raises $250,000 in private equity to help build and market the first SDOX prototype.

 

2007: U.S. Patent Office issues patent to BlueInGreen and the University of Arkansas for SDOX. Other U.S. and international patents are pending.

 

2008: BlueInGreen records its first commercial sale and completes its first SDOX installation at a wastewater treatment plant in Fayetteville.

 

2009: Company starts work on a Hyperconcentrated Dissolved Ozonation (HyDOZ) pilot program at a Springdale water treatment facility through a $750,000 grant from the National Institute of Health.

 

2010: Clete Brewer hired as CEO, setting out to raise $1.5 million in private equity to launch sales and marketing, complete product development of HyDOZ and expand SDOX application.

 

BlueInGreen receives $175,000 rapid response grant for pilot program to help remediate BP oil spill off Louisiana coast.

 

Company receives the prestigious Innovative Technology of the Year Award at the 83rd Water Environment Federation Technical Exhibition & Conference in New Orleans.

 

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