Company History

Aquero Company was founded in Eugene, Oregon in February of 2002.

The work on the biological polymers and related materials originated in academia in the early 1980's when Dr. Steven Sikes (biographical information, next page) began a faculty position at the University of South Alabama in Mobile, AL. Over the years, the work was supported through approximately 50 research grants and licensing agreements from a variety of governmental agencies, personal care companies, and chemical companies.

Grants were provided by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Association through the Sea Grant program, the Office of Naval Research, the Alabama Research Institute, and other agencies. Current governmental grants and programs involve the US Department of Agriculture and the US Department of Energy.

Research and licensing agreements with the private sector were supported for example by the Procter and Gamble Company, Rohm and Haas (now Dow), British Petroleum, BASF/Master Builders, and Nippon Shokubai. Examples of other professional and collaborative interactions in more recent years include colleagues at Bayer AG, Dow Chemical, Encana (now Cenovus), Innovative Chemical Technologies Canada (now Weatherford), North American Oil Sands, Reichhold, Scoular Company, SNF Inc., Stepan Company, StatOil Hydro, and Tate & Lyle among others.

In 1998, Dr. Sikes began commercial activities outside of the University through a venture group in Alabama. In 2001, he resigned his professorship amicably to pursue the private-sector work full time.

Aquero Company continues to focus on discovery and early-stage activities related to new compositions of matter, methods of synthesis, methods of commercial production at the pilot-scale, performance assessment, and new uses of the materials. Also included in Aquero's efforts, of course, are new intellectual-property filings worldwide as well as maintenance and continuing prosecution of issued patents.

Commercial efforts are undertaken through partner companies. At present, our main partner is FilterBoxx Water and Environmental Corp. of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Other commercial collaborations and partnerships are set up through FilterBoxx.

Current commercial efforts involve quite a number of companies and regions, but are focused at present mainly in the western US and Canada.

Aquero Company is wholly owned by the Sikes family.