Leadership, hard work, teamwork, and innovation are reflected in the people who make up EnviroScience. For 30 years, Greg Zimmerman has embodied those values by identifying new opportunities, championing innovative services, and helping the company grow.
“Once we get here, we really don’t ever want to leave,” Zimmerman said. “I remember thinking, ‘I don’t ever want to leave here. This is what I want to do for the rest of my life.’”
Zimmerman’s Early Years
While studying at Hiram College, Zimmerman attended a zebra mussel conference at the encouragement of advisor Dr. Marty Huehner, where he met EnviroScience founders Marty Hilovsky and Jamie Kresja. A few months later, while moving out of his dorm, he received a call asking if he could report to the office at 5 a.m. for a two-week electrofishing and water quality project.
“It was a trial by fire hose,” Zimmerman recalled. “We just jumped in feet first and never really stopped after that.” He logged nearly 200 hours in his first two weeks before working his way from seasonal field staff to vice president.
Throughout his career, Zimmerman has remained grateful for the mentorship that helped launch it. After joining EnviroScience, he later recruited his college advisor, Dr. Marty Huehner, to support the company’s growing endangered mussel survey work. Marty eventually left his tenured position at Hiram College to join EnviroScience full-time, becoming a mentor to countless employees over the years. The company’s founder Marty Hilovsky and Jamie Krejsa were also great mentors and partners along the way.
Zimmerman’s Role in EnviroScience’s Expansion
As the environmental industry evolved, Zimmerman consistently looked for new opportunities to expand EnviroScience’s capabilities. After establishing the company’s GIS department, he integrated mapping into projects and services, strengthening both technical expertise and client communication.
His contributions extended well beyond GIS. Zimmerman saw opportunities and started EnviroScience’s mussel survey program, commercial diving services, VibraCore sediment sampling capabilities, and other service lines. One of his earliest successes came after encouraging the company to pursue mussel survey work, leading to its first small mussel contract in 1997 and three major DOT mussel projects the next year.
“Those have been my accomplishments, when we’ve grown in giant steps here and there,” Greg said. “What really makes EnviroScience special is having people who can think outside the box and make it happen.”
Creating a Lasting Impact
Over three decades, Zimmerman has contributed to projects with a tangible impact on communities. Although he is proud of the services and offices he helped develop, he said his greatest source of fulfillment has been seeing how EnviroScience’s work affects people’s everyday lives.
Although Greg is proud of the services he helped build, he says the greatest reward has been seeing EnviroScience’s work improve people’s lives—from supporting critical infrastructure projects to helping communities avoid lengthy detours after bridge closures while finding innovative solutions to minimize environmental impacts at the same time.
“What keeps me working here is being able to do something that impacts people’s lives,” Greg said. “Making sure people don’t have a 50-mile detour around a bridge and helping get that bridge built really hits home.”
Looking Toward the Future
Zimmerman has watched the environmental industry expand significantly during his career, with growing investment in areas such as stream and wetland restoration and increased opportunities for collaboration.
“For many years, we worked like consultants who would get a problem, solve it and then move on to the next problem,” he said. “Now, we have earned the trust of more customers who see that we can be their long-term solution.”
For Greg, that growth also creates opportunities for employees. He encourages the next generation to think creatively and continue building new services. “I want to continue to see us grow because I want to see the people here grow.”
A Legacy of Growth and Innovation
After 30 years, Zimmerman remains focused not only on what EnviroScience has accomplished, but on the people who will shape its future. Just as mentors invested in his growth early in his career, he hopes today’s employees continue bringing forward new ideas, building new services and creating opportunities for the next generation.
“No matter what level of the organization you are, get your ideas out there,” he said. “We continue to succeed by finding really good ideas and investing in them. That’s how we can keep growing together.”
From his first electrofishing assignment to helping shape new services, offices and long-term client relationships, Zimmerman’s 30-year career reflects the curiosity, determination and collaborative spirit that continue to move EnviroScience forward.
Few environmental firms in the country retain EnviroScience’s degree of scientific know-how, talent, and capability under one roof. The diverse backgrounds of our biologists, environmental engineers, scientists, and divers enable us to provide comprehensive in-house services and an integrated approach to solving environmental challenges—saving clients time, reducing costs, and ensuring high-quality results.
Our client guarantee is to provide “Excellence in Any Environment,” meaning no matter what we do, we will deliver on our Core Values of respect, client advocacy, quality work, accountability, teamwork, and safety. EnviroScience was created with the concept that we could solve complex problems by empowering great people. This concept still holds true today as our scientists explore the latest environmental legislation and regulations and incorporate the most up-to-date technology to gather and report data.
EnviroScience expertise includes but is not limited to aquatic surveys (including macroinvertebrate surveys and biological assessments); ecological restoration; ecological services (including impact assessments, invasive species control, and water quality monitoring); emergency response; engineering and compliance services; endangered mussel surveys; laboratory and analysis; stormwater management; sustainability services; threatened and endangered species; and wetlands and streams (including delineation and mitigation). Further, EnviroScience is one of the few biological firms in the country that is a general member of the Association of Diving Contractors International (ADCI) and offers full-service commercial diving services.