COMPANY HISTORY

After 10 years in the engineering training program at Envirex, including stints in equipment manufacturing, field service, Midwest Regional Service Sales Representative, plus an additional 9 years as an aftermarket equipment service specialist in the St. Louis area and Wisconsin, Mike Humcke created Equipment Restoration Services, Inc. as a process equipment services company in 1993. Pooling all of the years of training, thousands of field inspections, and a wide range of procurement resources, the company established itself as the only independent firm in the United States fully trained and experienced in the design, manufacture, installation, repair, modification, upgrade and restoration for all of the major manufacturers and for all types of process water and wastewater equipment.

The Company's technical services were geared toward eliminating unscheduled equipment downtime, reducing the cost and frequency of maintenance, and extending the design life cycle to lower operating costs. Equipment included circular clarifiers, contact (water treatment) clarifiers, rectangular (chain and scraper) clarifiers, anaerobic digestion equipment and systems, bar screens, grit collectors, aeration equipment, trickling filters, screw pumps and sand filters. Projects typically involved one or more of the following: failure analysis, trouble-shooting, remaining service life assessments, maintenance planning and budgeting, lubrication assessments, repairs, restorations, retrofits and design modifications, process assessments, design consulting, efficiency improvements, component upgrades, and Plant maintenance training.

On the 800+ projects completed between 1993 and 2005, the Company's advanced methods and protocols restored existing equipment to "better than new" condition for @ 60% of the cost of new installed equipment. It also completed projects in one-half the time versus traditional capital equipment procurement. In 1998, Equipment Restoration Services changed its name to Environmental Resources, Inc. (ERx, Inc.), as it began to provide technical services to Consulting Engineers as well as to municipalities and industry.

With the invention of DuraMax Cast Stainless Steel Chain in 2004, ERx, Inc. phased out its broad range of process equipment maintenance and repair services, and began to focus entirely on component upgrades for Bar Screens, Grit Collectors, and Rectangular (Chain and Scraper) Collectors. The first full scale installation was at the West Joliet, IL Wastewater Treatment Plant in 2004, on two 50-foot deep bar screens.

Between 2004 and 2010, ERx, inc. developed and tested four (4) cast stainless steel chains for dedicated use in the Water and Wastewater Equipment Industry: 720/730 Series, 715 Series, H82/C9103 Series, and H78/988 Series. ERx, Inc. pooled its three decades of equipment repair experience into a new, world-class package of field tested design and material options called DuraMax Chain and Equipment Products, including a line of polymeric and stainless steel chain sprockets, high-grade shafting, 200,000-hour bearings, and other components for long-term headworks service.

ERx, Inc. was awarded US Patents 7,237,375 B2 in 2007, 7,343,730 B2 in 2008, and Canadian Patent 2,519,653 in 2010. The Company received Federal trademark brand status for DuraMax Cast Stainless Steel Chain and Equipment Products in 2007. In 1999, ERx, Inc. began a collaborative working relationship and information exchange with Amwell, Division of McNish Corporation for equipment design, maintenance and problem solving for the whole range of Amwell and McNish Corporation equipment products. In Chicago, at the WEFTEC 2008 Convention, Environmental Resources, Inc. entered into a partnership agreement with Amwell for the marketing and supply of DuraMax Chain and Equipment Products. This agreement included the establishment of the Amwell DuraMax Products Group, and the introduction of DuraMax Bar Screen, Grit Collector, and Rectangular Collector equipment to the U.S. industrial and municipal water and wastewater treatment markets. Environmental Resources, Inc. maintains its own group of DuraMax Chain and Equipment Products direct sales representatives in Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, northwest Indiana, eastern Missouri, northern Ohio, western Pennsylvania, W. Virginia, and California. Today, there are nearly 50 DuraMax Chain and equipment installations at 40 different water and wastewater treatment plants in the United States and Canada, with over 10,000 feet of DuraMax Chain successfully installed to date.