Innovation, customer diversity and expansion rank high on Amanda Christides’ priority list.
So in April 2011, she launched a spin-off company called Valkyrie Environmental Water to sell products in the global marketplace through an international distributor network.
Amanda Christides
She hired Rob Aldave from Baltimore as president and re-assigned one Rochester Hills staffer to help run the Maryland sales office. Two other employees share duties at both companies.
“While Plymouth Technology and Valkyrie are both in water, it’s a fundamentally different client base,” says Valkyrie CEO Christides.
Plymouth Technology focuses on and works closely with the industrial wastewater end user. So that team deals with manufacturers. Valkyrie’s business model works through distributors and uses capital equipment and solid media-based products, such as activated carbons, to remove metals and contaminants from industrial wastewater.
“Valkyrie is a different sale and price point,” she says. Valkyrie’s average transaction would be $100,000 while an average Plymouth Technology sale is $10,000.
“It’s a baby company, but doing great so far. Valkyrie works with basically billion-dollar companies that focus on solving large municipal mining and power and ground water issues,” she says. “It will be all over the globe and involve working with lots of environmental engineering firms.”
When Christides finds new warehouse and manufacturing space for Plymouth Technology in Rochester Hills, Valkyrie will begin to produce its first new product there.
Valkyrie is an “exciting adventure” for Christides. Already the growing firm has garnered a 2011 Pollution Engineering Editor’s Choice Award in its inaugural year for its methods of removing copper from cooling tower discharge. http://vewater.com
