Juliet Duffy has cause to celebrate with Regional EnviroScience’s arrival on the listing.

As a STEM - science, technology, engineering and maths - firm and with a woman at the helm she could be the most unusual Fast 100 lister.

The Fast 100 is ranked by average revenue growth over four years.

Some of the household names that started out as Fast 100 companies include Atlassian, Booktopia, Boost Juice, Carman's Fine Foods, Cellarmasters, Grill'd, Herron Pharmaceuticals, Lonely Planet, RedBalloon, SEEK and WebJet.

Regional EnviroScience is an occupational and environmental hygiene consultancy with specialties in asbestos, pollution incidents, meth lab clean-ups, contaminated sites and air and water monitoring.  

EnviroScience protects the health of people and the environment through detecting and monitoring a range of contaminants in the air, water, soil and materials.  

With offices in Dubbo, Wagga and Tamworth and recently in Maroochydore, Queensland, Enviroscience employs more than 25 people, including 17 professional staff.  

EnviroScience works with a range of public and private clients including state and federal departments and tier one civil, manufacturing and mining companies.

“Being regionally-based,we understand the uniqueness of our natural environment, infrastructure and communities,” Ms Duffy said.  

“Living in the towns where we work, our team has the connections and support to get the job done quickly and efficiently, and recognition of our innovative approach to meeting legislative and safety requirements has amplified our growth.”

The company also specialises in naturally occurring asbestos which is prevalent in regional NSW, detecting and testing samples at their Dubbo-based NATA accredited laboratory.

Typically a male dominated industry, the EnviroScience team includes two young women who are both science qualified and licensed asbestos assessors, mentored by Juliet.

“Being a woman in STEM is not without its challenges – especially with perceptions, however it has never really been a problem with on-site work,” Ms Duffy said.

“All of our team, contractors and clients support each other in day to day operations.

“It has been easy and thoroughly enjoyable to grow the business to where it is

today, and without their support we wouldn’t have been able to achieve this extraordinary growth.

“I thank them all.”

The growth over the past four years can also be attested to Juliet’s sheer tenacity.  

A recent breast cancer survivor, Ms Duffy knows how to put up a good fight and is a champion for regional businesses and the untapped expertise in regional areas.

“Often the education and experience that lies within the regions is overlooked by decision makers in capital cities, adding great expense and additional resource

use to manage projects,” she said.

“I hope EnviroScience’s national recognition can contribute to breaking down

some of the false perceptions that being a bush-based organisation is some sort of barrier to talent.”

For the future Ms Duffy is keen to develop new products, technologies and staff that will help keep people safe from environmental hazards, both in Australia and internationally.  ‘Every day new hazards are being identified, and we strive to be on top of the impacts they can have on the communities where we live and work,” she said.

Australian Financial Review is a Fairfax Media publication.