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In his suit and tie, James Howie doesn't look like Ben or Jerry, the middle-aged T-shirt boys who run a multimillion ice cream business. But Howie's sentiments sound like theirs. He talks of the "warm feeling" he gets from running his own company and his satisfaction in "doing something positive for the environment."
Howie is president, CEO and part-owner of Costa Mesa-based Fluid Recycling Service Inc. The company specializes in the purification and recycling of coolants and fluids used in the metalworking industry. Rather than selling recycling equipment, as do its competitors, Fluid Recycling operates a fleet of mobile units with trained technicians who perform recycling and treatment procedures on site.
Howie predicts 1990 sales will reach $3.5 million, more than double 1989's figures of $1.4 million. The bulk of that comes from such industrial giants as General Dynamics, Hughes, Northrop, Rockwell International and TRW.
"We believe we're the nation's leader in this embryonic technology," Howie says.
Before taking over the helm at Fluid Recycling, Howie rose through the corporate ranks at Wynn Oil Co., a $50 million subsidiary of Wynn's International. In 1976, he joined Wynn Oil as a general manager of its industrial division. Three years later, Howie transferred to Crager Industries, another Wynn's International division, as vice president of marketing.
In 1982, at age 41, Howie returned to Wynn Oil as president and CEO. But after four intense years of attending meetings around the world, he was ready for a change, preferably one that allowed him to stay in California.
In early 1985, Wynn Oil purchased Fluid Recycling from its entrepreneurial owner, operating it more as a research project than a business. Seeing an opportunity, Howie and several other investors shortly thereafter engineered a leveraged buyout of Fluid Recycling.
With his investment of $100,000 of his own money, Howie became owner of 55 percent...