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Thursday, September 27, 2001

By Len Boselovic, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

John Evanko was around the first time shippers of municipal garbage, hazardous waste and other environmentally challenged materials tried switching from truck to rail.

	John Evanko, MHF Logistical Solutions president and chief executive officer, waits for the camera to roll recently for a commercial sponsored by KDKA that highlights a firm in the region. (Darrell Sapp/Post-Gazette)

It was the mid-1980s and Evanko, who was working for an environmental services firm, saw the full-court press to make the switch fail because of a lack of expertise and equipment. Railroad cars weren't in any condition to move environmental materials, and shippers didn't know how to work with railroads to arrange, track and expedite the movement of the goods.

Still, the concept made sense to Evanko.

"I figured if I could even take 20 to 25 percent of the material that moved by truck and instead move it by rail. ... We could build a very substantial business," Evanko said.

Over the next few years, Evanko took the time to learn what shippers didn't want to learn about using rail. In late 1994, he and his wife and some other investors -- including Zelienople trucking company MHF -- started MHF Logistical Solutions. The Zelienople company did $2 million of business in 1996, $8 million in 1997, $8.5 million in 1998, $24 million in 1999 and just under $40 million last year.

"This year, we'll be in the low $50 millions," said Evanko, 43, MHF Logistical Solutions' president and chief executive officer.

The impressive growth put the company in 72nd place on Inc. magazine's 2000 list of America's fastest-growing private companies. It will move to larger office space in Cranberry by the end of the year.

MHF Logistical Solutions employs about 60 and has an $80 million fleet of equipment to move environmentally sensitive materials that range from contaminated soil, municipal solid waste, construction and demolition debris to industrial waste and hazardous and radioactive material. Only about 5 percent of MHF's business depends on moving nonenvironmental goods, a business Evanko wants to increase.

"Having the private equipment helps us control our destiny," Evanko said.

One of the reasons more shippers didn't move to rail sooner was that rail cars weren't designed to handle materials that posed environmental threats, Evanko says. MHF has a customized fleet of about 1,000 rail cars and more than 2,000 containers. Intermodal containers, boxes that can be moved either by truck or rail, are designed to fit efficiently in rail cars so that they can be fully loaded more easily. They also are designed to contain seepage and other problems traditional containers or freight cars weren't designed to handle.

MHF also provides logistics -- which oversees details involved with shipping, from procurement to transportation and maintenance -- and obtains the permits from federal and state agencies that are needed to transport the goods. That means its employees must be aware of regulations of the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, as well as those of various state regulatory bodies.

"You make one phone call, it gets done," Evanko said.

About 60 percent of MHF's revenue comes from government contracts, including handling waste and debris from uranium processing plants. For the most part, the work is steady, interrupted by the occasional federal budget crisis. During the Persian Gulf War, funding for some of the projects was reduced 15 percent.

Evanko says it's too early to say what effect the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 will have. While there may be some cutbacks, the government also may want to boost funding in an effort to lift the economy, he said.

MHF is making some moves to broaden its nonenvironmental businesses. It recently purchased a transfer station in Port Allen, La., that's equipped to move steel, bauxite and other goods. And it acquired Transport Plastics, a Sweetwater, Tenn., company that makes plastic packaging used by trucks and railroads.

"We're putting them into markets they hadn't thought of before," Evanko said.