Green Energy Initiatives wants to become a successful environmental company. But its mission is to help bring jobs to Mingo Junction and other parts of Ohio's former steelmaking region.
Jim Lewis, the company's chief operating officer, says he and partner Dave Waller � two former Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corp. managers � formed the company in the aftermath of the Mingo Junction plant's shutdown in 2009.
Lewis says a group of local business, religious and government leaders began discussing the fate of the region. But when no clear plan emerged, Lewis and Waller decided to to form Green Energy Initiatives, hoping that the success of the company will lead to green, spinoff jobs.
GEI has delved into a number of green areas, including solar lighting for portable toilets. A couple of big orders "kind of got the revenue going for the company," Lewis says.
Another business segment is in bioremediation. GEI distributes a beeswax-based material used to clean oil spills, and also helps companies develop spill prevention control and countermeasure plans. Additionally, the company provides environmental water sampling services.
While Lewis says other opportunities abound -- including supplying water used to force natural gas out of shale and then cleaning pollutants from the water afterward -- he believes one of the biggest is in liquid natural gas. When the steel mills shut down, numerous gas wells drilled to support the industry were capped, he says, stranding them before pipelines were built. GEI eventually hopes to build gas liquefaction plants at those well heads, using the natural gas to run the plants and then transporting the LNG to customers.
With eight employees and just under $1 million in purchase orders so far, the company hopes the ripple effect of its success will translate into hundreds of jobs within the community.
"I have a personal goal, and that is that in the next four to five years to have 400 to 500 people hired in businesses that are green in this part of Ohio."
Source: Jim Lewis, Green Energy Initiatives
Writer: Gene Monteith