Richard M. Marcus knew from an early age that he would not be satisfied until he had
built a successful business. His time spent working in family-owned restaurants in
Dayton and his experiences as a business student at Bowling Green State University
solidified his resolve. However, it wasn’t until he was working as a sales representative
at a fire protection company that the opportunity presented itself.
RemTec International got its start as a fire protection company with one major customer: the
U.S. military. Soon after, the government became interested in reducing its dependency on
ozone-depleting gases, especially halon. Marcus took that opportunity to develop RemTec into
a useful large-scale recycler of those ozone-depleting gases.
Now, RemTec offers products and services that reduce ozone depletion and global warming
by reclaiming and banking halocarbon products.
In 2005, Marcus recognized an opportunity: as halocarbon products were being replaced, the
surplus products that had been banned by the Environmental Protection Agency would have
to be destroyed in an environmentally friendly manner.
Although it was risky, he made an investment of $1.8 million for a new, state-of-the-art
destruction unit — even though there were no orders for processing on that unit at the time.
After making the investment, Marcus developed a marketing plan that advertised the environmental benefits and efficient service the unit was capable of delivering. As a result of his plan,
RemTec was able to secure a large government destruction contract that covered most of the
equipment’s cost.
RemTec still operates the only arc-plasma destruction facility in the U.S. Also, Marcus added
a proprietary chemical distillation process that gives the company the ability to solve its customers’ cross-contamination problems. RemTec is the only facility in the world that is able to
have destruction, recycling and distillation in the same facility.
HOW TO REACH: RemTec International, www.remtec.net or (419) 867-8990
