Meet Nathan Wilkes of Guidon Holdings, LLC in City Centre, Kingwood, and Pasadena

Today we’d like to introduce you to Nathan Wilkes.

Nathan, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I’m a graduate of the United States Military Academy (USMA) and a Texas A&M University (TAMU) MBA. While in the TAMU MBA, I went to a USMA luncheon where the channel director for the Port of Houston Authority was speaking on a shipping channel deepening project. I know super exciting stuff. During his speech, he mentioned that we were hauling enormous amounts of dredged material offshore to dump it because there wasn’t enough space on land-based Dredged Material Placement Areas (DMPA). I got the idea from there to explore ways to beneficially and/or commercially use dredged material and from there, Placement Area Solutions (PAS) was born. Since the start of PAS in Jan 2017, we have started two other companies (PAS Aggregates and PAS Mining Solutions) and those three companies fall under our holdings company, Guidon Holdings. We are a Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) and all of our owners are veterans, Aggies, or both. We maintain a service and ownership mentality and we are passionate about finding waste in existing processes and turning it into something with value.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
It’s never a smooth road, but luck favors the prepared and our team is always prepared! With a young, project-based company, we had no money to start such high capital intensive projects, so we started really small with brokering and bootstrapped our way into the company we are today. That meant over a year of being unemployed and working tirelessly toward a successful start-up with no back-up plan. Needless to say, having a family to support and bills adding up, there were some dark days, but grit prevails.

Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Guidon Holdings, LLC – what should we know?
We are an aggregates company with so much more. We turn waste into value. With most mining operations, they look for one thing and everything else falls to the side. To explain it simply, we use that waste. Through screening, washing, separating, clarifying and much more, we turn a natural resource that is considered waste into something that can be used in industrial, construction, and recreational markets with true value.

We are best known for our patent-pending process to remove dredged material from Dredged Material Placement Areas (DMPAs), process it, and use it commercially. Our country’s current methods of disposing of dredged material are wasteful, costly, and unsustainable. Our company removes, washes, and separates historically wasteful dredged material and turns the material into a commercial product that competes with traditional sand and clay mining products. It is a fantastic process that is environmentally beneficial and industry changing.

We are proud to be a Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) with a focus on hiring veterans. We also have a top-tier leadership team with proven experience in building and leading teams in high-stress environments. We have amazing resilience and grit and we are the perfect team to make such a disruptive change to the industry.

Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
Anyone who tries to do it on their own is preparing for a steep climb. For me, I’ve had three phenomenal mentors and a powerful network in Texas A&M. Anthony Bahr, a serial entrepreneur, has taken a tremendous amount of time out of his busy schedule to coach, teach, and mentor me over the last couple years and has been an amazing cheerleader for our company. Rob Van Til with River Aggregates is also one of the most wholesome men I’ve ever met and has been an outstanding advisor for technical advice and networking within the mining industry. Lastly, Joe Sutton, Brian Ivany, and the Sutton Ventures team have been great mentors and partners in the climb of our company over the years. They are constantly available and willing to work with us propel us into the next phase of the company.

I started the company while completing my MBA at Texas A&M and the support from the staff, professors, and network have been nothing short of miraculous. From providing professor advice to capstone groups for project support to the temporary workspace while we got started up, Texas A&M has proven to us that they are the best and most practical University in the country. There is no one better.

Special thanks as well to the team at the Texas Aggregate and Concrete Association (TACA) and Bunker Labs for their assistance and support.

Contact Info:

• Address: 842 West Sam Houston Parkway N
  Suite #110
  Houston, TX 77024
• Website: www.guidonholdings.com
• Phone: 713-364-6647
• Email: nwilkes@guidonholdings.com
• Other: linkedin.com/company/pas-materials

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