Reaching the Summit

When Commerce Secretary William Daley signed his name to a series of business and environmental deals with the Chinese last week, he finalized multimillion-dollar arrangements for some of the most widely known corporations in the world: IBM Corp., Motorola Inc., General Electric Co. and Atlantic Richfield Co.

But Dasibi Environmental Corp.?

The Glendale-based maker of air-monitoring equipment was the only non-Fortune 500 company to sign a contract with the Chinese at the summit of U.S. and Chinese leaders.

“We’re more like a Fortune 5 million company,� joked Al Gosselin, Dasibi’s president.

But there was Gosselin at a luxury hotel in Beijing, alongside the commerce secretary and big shots from multinational corporations. The CEOs may not share similar ledgers, but on that day each displayed a wide grin, an appropriate expression after gaining a foothold in the notoriously complex Chinese market.

Dasibi’s $5.2-million deal with China’s State Environmental Protection Administration will wire 11 Chinese cities together, equipping each with sensitive monitoring gear that measures various pollutants and particulates in the air.

The deal represents what Gosselin hopes is the first of a two-phase arrangement with the Chinese. The second phase, Gosselin said, could result in a deal “something like six times larger than phase one. It could be up in the $30-million range.�

While Dasibi’s deal is a fraction of the $70-million contract Arco received to explore a methane coal bed in China, it demonstrates that even the little guys can join in the effort to “green�--and profit from--the world’s most populous nation, according to the Commerce Department.

“Size of companies does not matter when they come to us for help with the Chinese,� department spokesman Curt Cultice said.

With China’s 1.2 billion people and rampant pollution, many environmental and government leaders have said Chinese attention to environmental concerns is critical to such problems as ozone depletion and toxic smokestack emissions.

The nation has little in the way of pollution regulations, especially air pollution, and therefore no enforcement expertise, Gosselin said. “But with the equipment we’re selling them, they’ll be able to gather data accurately and then set pollution regulations they can begin to enforce. They will eventually have clean-air standards.�

Dasibi’s contract is part of a larger environmental accord with the Chinese government that addresses global warming, toxic gas emissions, clean energy sources, water pollution and environmental science and technology issues, Commerce Department officials said.

The deal, the largest in Dasibi’s 30-year history, means instant growth for the company.

“Currently we employ about 30 people,� Gosselin said. “But with this, we see ourselves growing by about 40 employees--not temporaries, either. We plan to go further in China than this.�

While Dasibi has been in contact with Chinese officials since 1981, it wasn’t until 1994 that the Chinese first awarded a contract to the firm, according to the company.

“It was a smaller contract to install just a few air-monitoring systems,� Gosselin said of the ’94 deal, worth roughly $350,000. “But this is a huge deal. It was all over the Chinese media. I was just a little disappointed how little attention it received here at home.�

Gosselin imagined returning from China to find his company’s stock price soaring. No such luck, he said.

Dasibi is a subsidiary of Pollution Research & Control Corp., which is also based in Glendale and headed by Gosselin. Pollution Research was trading on Nasdaq at about $3.25 when he left, and had actually dropped slightly when he returned last week. It rose 13 cents to close at $2.25 on Tuesday.

“I quit trying to figure out the market a long time ago,� he said with a laugh.

Dasibi makes air analyzers and converters used to gather pollution data from the air, process it and compare the information from other air-testing sites.

“They can apply the information to weather reports as well and get a reading on how the pollution is moving across the region,� Gosselin said.

While the details of the contract are being worked out, the first delegation of 15 Chinese technicians assigned to operate the equipment will be preparing for a trip to Glendale, where they will be schooled in the use of the equipment by Dasibi employees, Gosselin said. The contingent is expected within 60 days.