Environmental business surge.

• Author: Griffin, Judith Fuerst
• Position: Alaska

LABELED ONE OF THE BIGGEST business issues of the 1990s, environmentalism is expected to permeate politics, policy and profits. In Fortune magazine's Feb. 12 cover story, associate editor David Kirkpatrick wrote: "Trend spotters and forward thinkers agree that the Nineties will be the Earth Decade and that environmentalism will be a movement of massive worldwide force."

Already the evolution of environmentalism -concern about impact on the environment-has thrust new responsibilities on companies of all sizes. They include waste management, pollution prevention, increased liability, employee education, and monitoring of material handling, disposal and shipping.

Even when compliance to Earth-impact-minimizing behavior is not mandated, firms are posturing to promote positive images, or to avoid tarnished ones. Although costly, contingency planning, remediation, training and evaluation of environmental impacts increasingly are considered essential costs of doing business.

The dizzying demand for talents and technologies to address the Earth Decade's concerns has created a mushrooming environmental business sector. Professional services and products are providing needed solutions and capitalizing on the new opportunities of environmentalism. Their capabilities are touted in resumes and business profiles revised to play up key words such as environmental, hazardous material and toxic.

Following more than a year's highly visible national media coverage of changes wrought by the March 24 wreck of the Exxon Valdez in Prince William Sound, Alaska is one of the first places that comes to mind when conjuring up images of fouled or endangered environment. As a result, the oil-spill state also has been spotlighted as a possible business location by firms seeking slices of the environmental business pie.

Propelled by profitable spill-cleanup business last year, the influence of environmentalism can be seen clearly in Alaska's business fleet. Environmentalism is drawing new firms to the state, creating business opportunities for those already doing business here and encouraging companies to consolidate or reorganize to strengthen their Alaskan environmental service or product capabilities.

One business enjoying swelling demand for its services is Martech USA Inc. of Anchorage. Offers to purchase or merge with the business last year and an independent appraisal of its worth by Paine Webber of New York convinced Ben Tisdale, president of Martech, to take the firm's stock public.

The initial offering in December sold 1.5 million shares of stock. A supplemental stock offering is planned for June.

Martech stock's value recently rose when the company announced second-quarter, fiscal year 1990 revenues of $9.5 million, more than triple the comparable 1989 figure. Halfway through the fiscal year as of Feb. 28, Martech reports total revenues of $22.2 million, compared with $8 million in the first half of fiscal year 1989.

Tisdale attributes the revenue jump to marine construction and diving services in the Gulf of Mexico and hazardous-waste cleanup projects and oil-spill response in Alaska and California. Martech was a major contractor in cleanup work following the early February spill of 400,000 gallons of North Slope crude oil off Huntington Beach, Calif.

Founded in New Orleans in 1974...