Acterra

THE ACTERRA GROUP got the petroleum equipment division, which is the heart of the business and always has been,” says Cooper. “And that is anything that has to do with fuel equipment – above ground, underground, installing it, distributing it, selling it, servicing it. It could be a pump at the island of a convenience store, or it could be a tank for a fleet for a government operation– anything like that.” “Then we’re also fuel tank manufacturers,” he continues. “We have a manu- facturing facility here in Iowa where we manufacture above ground and under- ground steel tanks.We also have an electrical division where we do industrial electrical work, plus we do some renewable energy work. Finally, we’ve got a federal services division that only works on DOD (Department of Defense) and Air Force facilities, mainly in the fueling business.” Acterra has about 60 employees; its customers range across the Midwest from Denver to Chicago. “We’ve got offices in Denver, Des Moines and Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and satellite offices –one in Texas, one in Chicago, one in Sioux City, Iowa.” Cooper reports that, in addition to actively marketing its services via direct sales, digital marketing, and trade shows, the company also maintains long-term relation- ships with major general contractors who have five-year federal maintenance contracts. “That’s one of our biggest customers,” he declares. “And the federal services division has actually in- creased this year; it will probably be about 30 percent of our business; the electrical will be about 10 percent; the manufacturing will be 20 percent; and fuel equipment will be the rest.” Over the years, Acterra has grown both organ- ically and by some small acquisitions. It has also continued to diversify: currently, it is spinning off one business, starting another, and expanding its territory. “We’re moving into the asphalt storage market,” says Cooper. “We build and supply as- phalt storage tanks and sell a variety of heating and storage systems.We’ve done that, here and there, over the past few years, but now we’re turn- ing that into its own business. “And we just became the national distributor for a small wind turbine manufacturer from Germa- ny that’s trying to push into the United States. They’re owned by a company called Lely - a large dairy manufacturer. My guys are going to Germa- ny for initial training so we can enter the market- place in March. “And federal services is expanding our footprint for us.We just started a project in Canton, Ohio. We’re teaming with a company out of Hawaii that