Environmental company and Mexican restaurant win EPA award

Longmont’s Management and Engineering Services delivers specialized environmental and business planning support for clients across the United States. The company, which operates out of an airy office on north Terry Street,  also recently installed an AcuRite weather station on its roof to help drive key decisions on sustainability in the building, including the right amount of water to use on its landscaping.

Management and Engineering Services is bristling with other environmental tools and perks that allow it to keep its local carbon footprint to a minimum.

The 33-year-old company uses a sense energy monitor to track electricity usage and allows employees to use a 2017 Nissan Leaf SVL all-electric car. The company also bought bikes for employees to commute to-and-from work.

“We see our work as helping the environment both here and elsewhere,” the company’s president Craig Erickson said recently.  “We like to walk the talk.”

Not far away, hungry landscape and construction workers line up in front of Taco Star, 2020 Main St., for fish tacos, tasty churros and carne asada fries to fuel them during their working day. Manager Yovan Trujillo  commands a narrow kitchen seven days a week and directs his family to serve hot Mexican food using upgraded equipment including LED fixtures and low-flow aerators.

The move to produce less pollution while cooking makes business and environmental sense, Iris Prieto, Trujillo’s wife, said. “We’d like to encourage all businesses to make changes like we did,” Prieto said. “It’s good for business and it’s good for Longmont.”

The efforts by Management and Engineering Services and Taco Star led them both to be given prestigious Pollution Prevention -P2- awards from the Environmental Protection Agency. The award showcases companies that do exemplary work in preventing regional pollution.

The EPA’s P2 program is voluntary and encourages businesses and others to seek innovative ways to prevent pollution from entering waste streams, according to a city staff report.

Mitzi Nicoletti said four businesses in Colorado were eligible for P2 recognition and two - Taco Star and Management and Engineering Services - hail from Longmont. That was no accident, Nicoletti said.

“I just think that shows how Longmont, through its sustainability efforts, has excelled in encouraging businesses to make changes for the environment,” Nicoletti said. Nicoletti - a candidate for city council - has served as a board member for Sustainable Resilient Longmont and chaired the SRL Renewable Energy Committee. 

She is also a co-founder and member of the Longmont Climate Community. Nicoletti said the two P2 winners are examples of how businesses, no matter whose clients they serve, can take part in improving the city’s air quality.

“It’s about achieving equity in our efforts,” she said. “That is how we will succeed.”

Nearly everything employees use at Management and Engineering Services is recycled or retreated. The company over the past three years has implemented water reduction equipment and techniques, including a remote irrigation controller to more effectively water the landscaping around the building, Erickson said.

The company also has a composting program, eliminating disposable food service ware. LED lighting in much of the buildings is controlled by Seri.

 “We’ve made these changes because we care about our environment and we also want to demonstrate to our clients that we practice what we preach,” Erickson said.

Taco Star has been working with Longmont’s Sustainable Business program, Efficiency Works, and Boulder County Partners for a Clean Environment, the city staff report states. Prieto is also a member of the city’s Equity Climate Action Team, the Climate Justice Collaborative and is an outreach coordinator for the OUR Center. 

To combat wase and pollution, Taco Star updated older compact fluorescent interior and exterior lighting to new LED fixtures, replaced less efficient hand sink aerators with low-flow aerators, and replaced 20-year-old refrigeration equipment with new ENERGY STAR units, the staff report states.

Her husband - Trujillo - moved his family from Pueblo about 11 years to manage the Taco Star because he liked the Longmont community. “It was nice and quiet,” Trujillo said. “And I liked the people.”

He is also proud of the changes he and his wife have made to make Taco Star an environmental standout. “I think it’s good we have helped the environment. It also makes good business sense to move forward,” Trujillo said.

“We just want other small businesses, and businesses with people of color, to make this kind of move,” Prieto said. “It’s good for everybody.”