A Role Model You Won't Find in Business Week

"Only a Duraflow distributor can give customers total performance."

Unlike iPods, wastewater filtering is not very sexy. That probably helps if you're looking for companies with the essential DNA to thrive in the climate change bought on by the tech bubble collapse. With a company like Duraflow Corporation, there's no glitter to distract you from seeing the raw fundamentals.

Ten years ago the people at Duraflow had a good business -- it was (and still is) called Compliance and Recycling Corp. (CARI). It focused on building plants that remove the waste in water used to make circuit boards and other electrical components. Based in Tewksbury, Mass, the company flourished serving the needs of computer and electronics manufacturers in the U.S. and especially New England. Today, of course, those kinds of plants are typically built in China -- somewhat removed from the typical CARI service call to, say, Springfield, Mass. or Salem, New Hampshire.

But instead of just becoming extinct like a lot of old-line New England companies, CARI gave birth to Duraflow, which has become the largest U.S. supplier of wastewater treatment technology providing total system solutions to Chinese manufacturers. That includes the latest technology (crossflow microfiltration modules), the chemicals that work with those modules, and the know-how to build and operate systems incorporating those modules.

How is that possible? There are lots of reasons, but probably the biggest was the founders' insight that China needed a scalable solution to its wastewater treatment problem (just as Duraflow needed a scalable solution to its problem of how to reach profitable, but distant, markets).

That solution was the Duraflow business model -- to equip and train Chinese distributors to provide everything a customer would need to comply with strict new Chinese environmental regulations. In other words, Duraflow's "real" business would be to create lots of CARIs, each one locally owed and operated, and each one selling a total solution, not just pieces of it. Getting all three pieces from a single source -- know-how, modules, and chemicals -- is less expensive for the buyer and more profitable for the distributor. There is, in fact, sufficient revenue to support the gold standard of compliance Chinese authorities want.

The result is a virtuous cycle of profitable distributors, happier officials, cleaner rivers, and more efficient manufacturers. The fact that Duraflow is helping transfer environmental technology to Chinese nationals, and helping locals build successful companies is their own right doesn't hurt either.

(A website transformation reflects the corporate transformation -- compare the Duraflow and CARI websites. The new site was designed by Schenkel/Stegman Communications Design. I wrote the text.)