About Us

St. John-Mittelhauser & Associates (SMA) was founded in 2007 by Ron St. John and Hank Mittelhauser. Ron and Hank began working together in 1985 when Ron joined Hank at Mittelhauser Corporation (MC). Prior to Ron’s joining MC, the staff was primarily composed of chemical engineers performing permitting and remediation services for private industrial clients. MC recognized that remediation of a site was greatly enhanced when the geology and hydrogeology of the site was well characterized; Ron’s expertise in those areas was well known. Together they expanded the company to 135 people, with offices in the Midwest and on the West Coast. Fundamentally, all the work MC performed was investigation and remediation of industrial sites.

In 1995 MC was purchased by Clayton Group Services, a company with a strong reputation for industrial hygiene services, laboratory services, and Phase 1 assessments. Clayton did not have remediation capabilities, which MC provided. Ron and Hank stayed with Clayton in various management positions, including being two of the eight members of the Clayton executive committee. Their primary responsibilities were managing large scale investigations and remediations.

In 2005 Clayton was sold to a 23,000 employee French-owned company, specializing in compliance and conformance certifications. Ron and Hank stayed with the company until February, 2007. At that time, they decided to return to their small-company roots, where they would have direct responsibility for the company direction and performance, to found SMA. In January 2009, several senior staff, that had worked with Ron and Hank for over 15 years, joined SMA and are now part of the SMA executive committee.

Currently SMA employs 30 geologists, engineers, scientists, field staff and support staff in their Downers Grove and Hartford, IL offices. The company has grown in sales from $0.3M in 2007 to $3.1M in 2008 with projected revenues of $5.3 M in 2009, essentially all of which is derived from environmental consulting, investigations and remediations.