It's not a bad gig working in an industry where the greatest challenge is dealing with an abundance of opportunities. This is how it is in the Waste Solutions Division at Seneca Companies, according to Business Development Manager Alan Charles. "We constantly get calls for all types of our services," he says. "Our challenge is to direct services where they're needed most and where we can benefit most as a company."

Charles was hired to focus on developing a market share in the biofuels industry for waste solutions and water blasting. He is also tasked with cross-marketing for all nine divisions of Seneca. The waste solution and water blasting group is approximately five years old, and within the past two years, ethanol has become a primary focus of Seneca's water blasting business. In fact, Charles estimates that over 90 percent of the company's water blasting business is for ethanol production facilities.

Gaining market share in the ethanol industry for water blasting remains his top priority. Next, Charles aims to cross sell the other divisions that have many of the products and services—petroleum, construction, remediation, and environmental consulting—that are useful to the ethanol industry. "The remediation division and environmental consulting division are interconnected with the water blasting division," he says. "We're seeing a lot of interest in all three areas."

Charles' job has changed to conform to the growth in the ethanol industry. Initially, he was assigned to cover the entire Midwest, but his region has condensed to primarily western Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota, North Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas. As a result, he is moving from Davenport to Des Moines, Iowa. Still, he says, he travels 1,500 miles per week. Additionally, Seneca is rapidly adding employees to expand the company's account servicing abilities, he says.

This huge increase in demand for contractor services, which isn't historically common for a Midwestern industry, is similar to that of the petroleum industry, Charles says. The ethanol industry is competing with other industries—especially the petroleum industry—for resources and people, he says. "Everybody is placing demand on vendors and suppliers for many of the same products and services," he says.

Charles says there are a lot of similarities between the ethanol water blasting business and the oilfield service industry, such as 24/7 on-call rapid response, mission-critical intensity and other activities, like tank cleaning and confined entry functions. "People are beginning to realize that ethanol, which is agriculture-based, has its future in thinking like an energy industry," he says. "Ethanol producers and contractors and everyone in the industry will have to start thinking of themselves in the energy industry."

Charles speaks from his experience working in the petroleum industry. The Montana native comes from a family of sugar beet farmers and oilmen. Out of high school, he followed suit and worked in an oil field for Halliburton Services. In 1983, he set off for the North Slope of Alaska with $5 in his pocket. He spent the next 17 years working his way up from a hot-oil truck helper to the North Slope area manager. Charles says these experiences have equipped him to help Seneca respond to the surge in demand for services that all ethanol service providers are experiencing.