Three young entrepreneurs in the Southside Bethlehem Keystone Innovation Zone (KIZ) are making waves in the business world.

Tim Marks, Pat Clasen and Justin Lawyer, collectively known as EcoTech Marine®, have invented a novel propeller pump for high-end reef aquariums, a specialized branch of the saltwater aquarium market. Their VorTech™ pump creates a healthier environment inside reef tanks while protecting fish and delicate coral from heat and electrical shock. It’s a well-engineered piece of essential equipment, the result of years of research and development.

But the trio’s biggest creation is a new destiny — for themselves and their city.

EcoTech Marine’s partners have combined their lifelong interest in marine biology with a passion for high-tech equipment and leveraged those interests to create a viable company. They are also providing a new business model that backers hope will recast Southside Bethlehem as a haven for entrepreneurs who want to commercialize their intellectual property.

For Marks, the story starts in Texas with a boyhood fascination with fish. “I’ve been an aquarist since I was a kid,” said the lanky 24-year-old dressed in black T-shirt and dark jeans, with brown hair curling from beneath a BMW motorcycle baseball cap. “I’ve had an aquarium since I was 10. I raised discus — they’re the most beautiful freshwater fish. Then when I was 12, I moved into saltwater aquariums.”

Lawyer, 27, physics major from Oklahoma who spends much of his time in a lab environment, was interested in inventing novel equipment. As for Clasen, 24, a taller, blond-haired version of Marks, “I’ve always been involved with aquariums. I was also interested in the product-development side. I wanted to start a business.”

Meeting of the minds
Marks met Lawyer through the Internet community of saltwater aquarists and the two spent years making aquarium equipment out of their basements before going pro. Marks met Clasen at Lehigh University. “We started to focus on not making stuff in our basement but organizing and funding a business. That was when the company formed an LLC partnership.”

“We’ve always had fish and built our own equipment,” Marks said. He and his partners founded EcoTech Marine as a limited liability company in 2003 for several reasons. “It’s the love of the biology, the maintenance of the microcosm. And it’s the technology, the equipment junkie side of us.”

“Pat and I had roomed together for five years,” said Marks. “We’ve played with remote-control cars and I race motorcycles. We’re gear heads. Saltwater reef aquarists are also into equipment. That’s why we build our own.”

Marks graduated in 2006 from Lehigh University with a master’s degree in mechanical engineering. Clasen is completing his master’s in material science at Lehigh, and Lawyer is finishing his bachelor’s in physics in Oklahoma. Shortly after they met, they realized that partnering would take them further than they could go as individuals.

“Then two years ago,” Marks said, “Justin came up with the premise of using magnets to couple a pump through the glass. Immediately the light bulbs went off. We could do this. We started concepting and prototyping. We partnered with a lighting manufacturer in this market, IceCap Inc. They have become our sole distributor in the United States. We’re selling thousands of them. We’re doing well enough that we can start this business right out of college.”

Innovative engineering
EcoTech’s market may be specialized but it’s big. More than half a million U.S. households keep about 9.6 million saltwater fish, according to the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association.

To put their invention in perspective, a fully equipped 100-gallon saltwater aquarium can cost upwards of $5,000 and stocked reef aquariums significantly more. Aquarists want to ensure that the fish and coral living in those environments thrive.

Pumps are a critical component in that delicate ecosystem because corals are sessile. Since they don’t move, all nutrients must be brought to them and all waste swept away.

 “The pump moves and aerates the water,” Marks said. “Studies have shown that increased flow will correlate to increased growth. Until this point, the primary means of providing flow was by an impeller pump. It sucks water in through the center and kicks it out radially. It produces a jet-like flow. The whole motor is in the aquarium. Propeller pumps are the best way of generating flow. They generate a high-volume flow with low velocity across a wider area.”

After realizing the gap in the marketplace, the trio decided to make a unique device that would not mimic a product made by their only major competitor, a company based in Germany. “We want to innovate,” Marks said. “That’s how we came up with a magnetic-through-the-glass pump.”

EcoTech’s innovation involves a two-part device coupled by two high-power magnets, suspended from the aquarium tank wall without brackets. The propeller sits in the water while the motor and electrical supply attach to the outside. “The advantages,” Marks said, “are no heat in the water, no electricity in the water and a smaller physical size without additional cost for brackets.”

Innovative programs
The innovation extends to the organizations that have helped EcoTech launch its business.

The trio credits Howard Lieberman, economic development coordinator with the City of Bethlehem's Office of Economic Development, with helping them secure a loan through the city, as well as a line of credit through First Star Savings Bank. They’re grateful to the Small Business Association for guaranteeing that line of credit. And they acknowledge Lehigh University’s Integrated Product Development program for helping them achieve a $19,000 grant from the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance to commercialize the VorTech pump.

But they save the biggest praise for KIZ.

“We wouldn’t be where we are if it wasn’t for the KIZ,” Marks said. “We knew if we stayed in Bethlehem we could get the funding for this company and partner with other companies.”

Clasen agreed. “My plan was never to stay here. But because of the programs and the facilities, this is a great place to start a business. They offer so much help. We’ve been able to make this into a functioning business. Hopefully we’re blazing a trail that other student companies can follow.”