Susan K. Holland.

• Position: Brief Article

Susan K. Holland founded EnviroTemps/ETI in 1992, starting out as a one-person office in a warehouse district of Wheat Ridge.

In just eight years, EnviroTemps/ETI has grown into a $10 million national company that employs 250 in 23 states, maintains corporate headquarters in Lakewood, and operates branch divisions in San Francisco, Boston, Baltimore, and Tampa.

"In eight years we have become a mecca for environmental professionals who didn't know how to market themselves," said Holland, president and chief executive officer. "We do all the marketing for them."

Holland founded the company in response to a growing demand for skilled environmental professionals to work on a project-by-project basis.

EnviroTemps has attracted the attention of such environmental-contracting giants as Morris-Knudson/Washington Group, Parsons Engineering Science, the U.S. Navy, and the U.S. Geological Survey - doing everything from cleaning up harbors to fulfilling terms of the Clean Water Act.

"The federal government has been our best ally," said Holland. "They open doors for us, allow us to compete openly for contracts, and that's just one of the reasons we have been able to grow more than 30% annually."

Holland, a third generation Westerner and second generation Coloradan is the mother of two and a grandmother. She has long been concerned about environmental issues such as the ominous 20 Superfund sites in her home state of Colorado.

"After researching the scope of the problem, I decided to form a company that would be THE...