Engineering firm makes Inc. 500 list

One of fastest growing companies in the country

Business Today

POPLAR BLUFF -- There's Microsoft, Stonyfield Farms, Princeton Review, E* Trade and Domino's Pizza. And then there's Schultz Engineering Services of Poplar Bluff.

What's the connection? All have appeared on the Inc. 500 ranking of the fastest growing private companies in the country.

Schultz Engineering Services made the list this year ranked at 385 on the list of 500 with a five-year sales growth of 463 percent. The company is one of seven Missouri firms to make the list. To be eligible for this year's Inc. 500, companies had to be independent and privately held through their fiscal year 2002, have had at least $200,000 in sales in the base year of 1998, and their 2002 sales had to exceed 2001 sales. Inc. verifies all information using tax forms and financial statements from certified pubic accountants and by conducting interviews with company officials.

"I've had an Inc. Magazine subscription for several years," said owner Stan Schultz. "A couple of years ago I saw that I would possibly be eligible at the end of 2002. I submitted the paperwork sometime in early spring, and I found out in August I had made the list."

Schultz Engineering services began in 1997 when Schultz was the only employee, and it has grown to 25 employees and a branch office near the Lake of the Ozarks. Schultz's first client was the Pike Creek Sewer District. From that first rural Missouri sewer system, the company has built a reputation for creating, designing and developing water and wastewater projects. The company has brought clean water to more than 1,700 houses in rural Southeast Missouri.

The firm has also diversified into materials testing for Corps of Engineers' projects, highway construction, surveying and inspection services and electrical transmission and generation projects.

"In the last two years," Schultz said, "we started cross-country transmission engineering with a firm in Memphis. We went to Canada in August for a five-state contract selling drying systems to revise the way we deal with chicken litter and sawdust waste to turn organic waste into fuel to generate power. We're exploring all options."

Schultz said his inclusion in the list is probably a one-time event, although some companies do repeat. For him to make the list again his sales for 2003 would have to exceed this year's sales, and he said he found that a slow, steady growth works best for his company. Sometimes he scales back, and other years he is more aggressive. Grow too fast he said, and you tend to flame out.

"The entrepreneurs you'll find on the Inc. 500 have the type of attitude we need to get this economy moving again," said editor-in-chief John Koten. "For them, a tough market is not an excuse for poor performance, but an opportunity to innovate and rise above the competition."

Inc. 500's number one company this year is American Biophysics, a company that makes a machine that kills mosquitos. It had a growth of 25,615 percent. Schultz is also on the list with Orange Glo International, the company that makes Oxiclean, the orange-scented, oxygen based cleaner advertised widely on television.

Inc. 500 is currently in its 22nd year of ranking the fastest growing businesses in the country.