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| Metro Environmental History |
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In 1969, Metro Environmental started as a specialty cleaning service, offering a unique service involving the cleaning of coils in large HVAC systems for corporate and institutional clients in the Phoenix area.
As the founder's knowledge of clients' HVAC systems expanded, concerns regarding indoor air quality became an issue. Since there was no "indoor air quality" industry, clients couldn't find a listing of qualified people to address IAQ; hence, they turned to those who were already meeting their specialized needs. The established coil cleaning business began to expand into one that addressed corporate indoor air quality-related issues.
One of the more memorable projects of than 30 years ago involved investigating the potential cause for the death of a premature infant in a hospital. We were pleased that news of that quick resolution to "a sensitive IAQ problem" quickly reached other hospitals, alerting them to Metro Environmental's ability to quickly and confidentially resolve sensitive IAQ-related issues.
In the early 1970's, the news media began to talk about "sick building syndrome," and building engineers were beginning to worry about "tight building syndrome." Most of the media focus was on large buildings where frequent, vague and dissimilar complaints followed the need for energy savings. More frugal operation of the large HVAC systems was targeted by the Federal government as a method of reducing energy.
With the Federal government mandating that all governmental buildings comply with specific building temperatures, Metro serviced the approximately 40 buildings in the Arizona State Capitol Complex. The coil cleaning business flourished, as did the IAQ investigations into concerns with "sick building syndrome."
In the mid-1970s, the company began to further expand its IAQ activities by taking on quality product lines that provided resolutions for IAQ problems identified as problematic in Metro Environmental's investigations.
By the 1980s, industrial hygienists began to take their expertise in chemical exposures to the non-industrial market - primarily large commercial buildings. Metro Environmental Company's focus expanded to include equipment that could be sold to others for measuring, testing and analyzing IAQ issues.
As indoor air quality evolved into an industry in the late 1980s, the founder of Metro Environmental Company began teaching others how to use the products they purchased to conduct investigations and resolve IAQ problems. Most of those new to the "industry" began to focus on the residential market, which had IAQ issues that were more easily resolved.
In 1992, Metro Environmental Company ceased conducting IAQ investigations for residential clients and began to concentrate exclusively on the more difficult challenges involving commercial and institutional clients. That same year saw the sale of the HVAC coil cleaning portion of the business.
As added value to Metro's corporate clients, the founder funded an IAQ association with a mission and goal that would help teach corporate clients more about IAQ and at the same time provide them with a network of other IAQ services and products. That association quickly became the largest association in the IAQ industry.
The balance of the 1990s saw Metro Environmental Company evolve into an elite service for corporate clients through offerings of services that bridged the gap between the knowledge of building operations and perceived IAQ issues by building occupants.
Most of the thousands of IAQ-related projects with which Metro Environmental Company has been involved over the years are sensitive and confidential. Many are unique in nature and involve issues that most IAQ-trained professionals have little or no experience in resolving. We'd be happy to talk about the generalities of those unique IAQ-related problems, but we cannot talk about them in a manner that gives specifics. Most clients understand because they would not want their IAQ-related problems revealed to others.
Metro Environmental Company had a unique approach to corporate clients' indoor air quality concerns. The typical response to a building occupant's complaint first involved providing the corporate client due diligence by monitoring and analyzing the operation of the building. If no problems were identified regarding the operation of the building (building automated controls, building energy management system, the various HVAC systems, spatial pressure relationships and other general operations), Metro Environmental Company would then begin a "witch hunt" that involved specialized industrial hygiene services, testing and sampling.
Generally, most IAQ complaints were resolved with small, inexpensive tweaks to building operations. It is also noteworthy to clients that we found a great majority of projects that were perceived by building occupants and/or owners as health concerns related to mold actually were small mold problems which needed to be addressed; the real issue involved the building's ventilation effectiveness.
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