NFIB/Indiana Member Profile: Deb Peters, founder, Quality Environmental Professionals, Inc.
Deb Peters’ company, QEPI, will celebrate its 20th anniversary in business on January 30, 2016, and she says the experience has been rollercoaster: “We have had our ups and downs; fast, hard, sharp turns; and it is always an adventure.”
QEPI, which has offices in both Indiana and Ohio, provides environmental engineering services to the government, public and private sectors, including state and federal agencies, universities, airports, cities, insurance companies, financial institutions and commercial and industrial manufacturers. The staff of 25 includes engineers, geologists, hydrogeologists, scientists, ecological and human health risk assessors, toxicologists, computer software experts, environmental technicians and emergency response professionals.
Business took off right away, and QEPI won back-to-back Indiana Growth 100 Awards in 1998 and 1999. This quick success also provided Peters with a lot of challenges and lessons learned.
“We were growing like weeds and, as I like to say, growing on chaos,” she says. “During that high growth time, I did not have the staff ready and trained to do the work, and that led to a lot of rework on projects, so our projects weren’t making a profit. Also during those times we were hiring fast and not necessarily making great decisions on bringing in the right teammates. We also did not have all of our finances in order and found out that I could not pay myself for my 80-hour workweeks to make sure everyone else was getting paid.”
To keep things going, Peters had to borrow money from personal credit cards to put into the company. She also pushed through various othersetbacks, including delayed payments totaling $1.5 million from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management and the government shutdown of 2013. Through these challenges, Peters learned important lessons about how to run her business and where to make operational adjustments.
“The most difficult thing about being a business owner is having the weight on your shoulders when things are going bad and not really having someone that you can discuss it with, as I do not have a business partner,” she says.
NFIB has helped bridge that gap by connecting Peters with other business owners, who she can share information with and gain perspective and advice on how to improve operations, increase workload and improve cash flow.
These efforts have paid off, as QEPI’s business continues to flourish. In 2013, QEPI became the first woman-owned business to win an environmental/engineering contract with the Louisville Army Corps of Engineers, which Peters says has been their biggest success.
“The best part of being a small business owner is the pride that you get when the clients inform you that your company has done a great job,” she says. “It’s also great when the employees get excited about starting a new job or receive a regulatory letter that a site we cleaned up is now officially closed out and our client receives closure from the regulatory agency.”
