| Alumni Profile:
Joseph Wilson, BS '77
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Personal Profile
Joseph Wilson
Occupation:
CEO, WR²
Degree:
BS (Forestry & Natural Sciences) '77
Residence:
Indianapolis
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Forester turns entrepreneur
Wilson, an avid fisherman in his spare time, earned a forestry degree
in 1977 and hoped to get a job as a Forest Service Ranger. "But
jobs were tough in '77," Wilson remembers. "So I went to work
as a manager for a furniture company instead."
Wilson realized within a few months that his first employment choice
wasn't a good fit, so he went to work for his uncle, making grinders
to destroy syringes and needles.
Although he hadn't considered a career in medical waste disposal, he
soon realized that it was a nearly perfect fit with his education at
Purdue.
"A big issue for waste disposal is the environmental
effects of disposal, and my forestry degree prepared me to deal with
that. In fact I took a course in environmental impacts," he says.
"I had taken courses in microbiology, chemistry, a graduate-level
course in soils, so I understood the issues."
In 1990, Wilson launched his own company, EcoMed, producing a small
biohazardous waste processing system.
Six years later, Wilson sold EcoMed to Steris Corp., an industry leader
in instrument sterilization for medical and scientific institutions.
Wilson became vice president of solid waste management systems for Steris.
While at Steris he became aware of WR², and the founders of the
company asked him to become CEO in 1998.
Since then, Wilson has raised more than $12 million in capital for the
company. He used that money to build the business and to acquire a related
company, Sterile Technology Industries Inc., which manufactures sterilization
equipment for medical institutions.
WR² is founded on a disposal technique developed by two doctors
at the Albany Medical College in Albany, N.Y. in 1992. The process uses
a combination of heat, pressure, and alkali to completely destroy biological
tissue.
Cross-contamination concerns
A year ago a reporter asked Wilson why his company didn't offer a smaller
version of the hospital tissue digester, saying farmers depend on rendering
trucks to dispose of livestock, and that these trucks travel from other
farms or facilities where there may have been animal disease outbreaks.
"What's more, it is the little guys, the farmers who are least
able to withstand the economic impact of a disease outbreak that have
the greatest risk of cross-contamination," Wilson says.
Wilson says he first thought there was no way his company could address
this livestock producers' need because the company's institutional tissue
digesters are room-sized devices that can cost more than $1 million.
"Over the next few weeks, I realized that farmers would produce
much less material to be digested than animal diagnostic centers like
Purdue, and so how fast the machine worked wasn't as important,"
he says. "We developed a machine that takes 16 to 18 hours to do
its job, and we call it the 'Agri-Lyzer.' Now producers have something
they can use on site that is prion-free and reduces their risk of exposure
to other livestock diseases."
Wilson says the company began taking orders late last year and plans
to build the first Agri-Lyzer in February.
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