Pinnacle GeoSciences

Specialty: Engineering and science services for soil and groundwater contamination
Principal: Steve Perrigo
Revenues: N/A

Photo courtesy of Pinnacle GeoSciences Pinnacle GeoSciences designed this 200-gallon-per-minute treatment system to remove chlorinated solvents from a contaminated water supply aquifer in Kitsap County.

As principal with Pinnacle GeoSciences, Steve Perrigo likes a good challenge. “Most of the interesting types of projects we get involved in are those that have a sustaining type of contamination problem and can’t be dealt with using conventional approaches,” he said.

His firm’s clients are private, non-government companies or organizations, which he said are in the position of owning contaminated properties.

Pinnacle GeoSciences’ search into unconventional approaches includes a recent project with the Electric Power Research Institute. The project involved applying existing technologies in non-conventional ways to solve soil and ground water contamination problems. The institute and Pinnacle GeoSciences are researching air sparging as a way to remove heavy petroleum hydrocarbons “to see if it can be effective beyond its original conceived intent,” Perrigo said.

Pinnacle GeoSciences remains focused in the core environmental contamination area — an area which Perrigo said peaked in the late 1990s “when a lot of the oil company work trailed off.”

Since then, Pinnacle GeoSciences has maintained a steady work load through property transfers and development, long-term cleanup and litigation.

“We see that market as continuing at a reduced pace from what it was,” Perrigo said. But, being a small firm, Perrigo said he can keep a narrow focus to avoid the fluctuations of boom and bust markets. “We’ve all been with bigger firms in the past, and have been on that roller coaster ride of growth,” he said. “We’re more interested in doing really good work and working on interesting projects than trying to grow an empire.”