The mainstay of mainstreet

LuminUltra of Fredericton can, without much argument from those who measure business achievement one innovation at a time, tick all the boxes that denote a company’s entrepreneurial coming of age. High tech? Check. International markets? Check. Established track record? Check. Expanding reputation for quality? Check. Accelerating revenue growth? Check.

In fact, by all appearances, the New Brunswick manufacturer of water monitoring, testing and treatment products — which employs 37 people who serve customers in 70 countries on every continent except Antarctica — is one of those overnight success stories that local economic development officers love to crow about when challenged to justify their conviction that the province’s can-do attitude is every bit as strong as any other jurisdiction.

Still, as LuminUltra’s CEO Pat Whalen (a chemical engineer by education and training) might say, appearances can be deceiving. “We started out in 1995 as a research and development operation with one engineer and one microbiologist,” he says. “The basic premise was to develop a faster way than was available at that time to determine if there were microorganisms in a water supply. The idea was, the faster you could produce information, the faster you could take action and save money, but also protect people and infrastructure.”

Whalen, himself, joined the research team at the ripe, young age of 15 as a self-described lab rat. “It took eight years to develop the technology,” he says. “It took four or five more years to get sufficient traction, during which time we ran through a lot of cash. So, we got into a few situations that, from a business point of view, were pretty precarious.”

One problem was the company’s early focus on biological drinking and wastewater treatment — sectors that were, it eventually became clear, glacially slow to buy what LuminUltra was selling. Especially in Canada where six months of frigid temperatures tend to undermine concerns about public health (harmful microbes grow in conditions of high heat and humidity). Says Whalen: “We banged our heads against that wall for three or four years until we realized we had to shift our emphasis and find sectors where there was more likely to be more rapid adoption of our technology.”

An important breakthrough came courtesy of the burgeoning oil and gas sector in Canada and the United States, where concerns about the condition of industrial wastewater was, and still is, a perennial preoccupation, regardless of the weather. Today, that end of the business accounts for the biggest chunk of LuminUltra’s revenue stream. Other sectors include: Warm-weather municipal drinking water operations (southeastern and southwestern U.S. utilities, for example); industrial water treatment for pulp and paper mills and power generating stations; and traditional biological drinking and wastewater treatment for municipalities.

“I think, from an entrepreneurial perspective, the main lesson in all of this is the market research piece of the puzzle,” Whalen says. “You have to do your homework and you have to go where the issues are, where you can solve real problems.”

For LuminUltra, the lesson is learned. Since 2009, the company has posted annual revenue growth of 40 per cent. That’s not bad for an overnight success that took years to write.