Opti is building the Internet of Stormwater to protect our water resources.

Aptomar is a leading provider of Integrated Field Monitoring sensors, systems and services for the oil and gas industry. The company focuses on protecting the safety and integrity of people, the environment and assets by managing; 24/7 oil spill detection and combating, surveillance and security as well as search and rescue in close cooperation with Industry. Year founded: 2005

Stormwater management is one of the most pressing urban environmental issues in the developed world. In the US alone, we discharge over 900 billion gallons of raw sewage into natural bodies every year due to combined sewer overflows. In addition, stormwater runoff can carry pollutants from urban and agricultural land into natural water bodies, resulting in eutrophication. Furthermore, due to urbanization, stormwater often flows too quickly into local water bodies, stirring up sediment and wreaking havoc on local species. These issues, and others, are consequences of the timing and flow rate of stormwater release. Opti automatically controls when and how fast stormwater flows. This simple intervention can have a massive impact on the health of our water ecosystem. Opti started in 2007, when we needed a better way to manage the water flowing in and out of a salt marsh in the Northeast. To solve this problem, we embedded a web server on a control board and integrated internet-based information into the logic for a pneumatic valve to manage the inflow and outflow from a salt marsh. It worked. The system achieved the goals of the NOAA funded research project, and it improved the health of the salt marsh. We realized then that the integration of on-site sensor and weather forecast information into control logic of distributed systems had broad applications for improving the performance of engineered environmental systems. But doing so safely at a citywide scale, would require us to adopt new approaches to infrastructure specification, information management, network communications, and software development. We began, and continue to develop, the platform we now know as Opti on the Microsoft Azure cloud because it continues to lead the way in robust, redundant, and secure cloud platforms. Along the way, we collected a strong group of partners, completed a three-year WERF research study, patented some of our algorithms, and deployed projects throughout the US. We were growing quickly, and the need was greater than we could handle inside Geosyntec Consultants. We forged a partnership with MissionPoint Partners and in 2014 struck out as an independent company to focus our efforts where our platform could make the highest impact - optimizing stormwater management.

Using proprietary technology and commercially available sensors, Aptomar merges remotely monitored sensor data into a single display and distributes it to create a real-time common operating picture. Experienced operators interpret the combined sensor data and intervene when necessary to alert and support the offshore operator in case of an incident. In 2014– as a response to numerous oil companies who want the industry to take a broader, more systematic approach to field monitoring – Aptomar established a new maritime control center in Trondheim, Norway. The center is called Aptomarin. Aptomarin combines 24/7 competence and monitoring capacity, with robust detection and an efficient and controlled emergency response management. Aptomarin consists of master mariners and professionals with extensive maritime and nautical competence.

BG Group, Eni Norge, Fafnir Offshore, O.M. Rønning