In many ways, Rock Vitale, CEAC, joining CTEH has been decades in the making. He launched Environmental Standards in the late 1980s alongside his co-founding partner, a Ph.D. toxicologist. With a wife and baby on the way, he hit the ground running, putting in upwards of 80 hours a week to sell and then conduct consulting work. Soon, Rock says the firm got its “big break” when Environmental Standards landed a large-scale contract to perform full-cycle quality assurance (QA) and field and lab audits. Within a few years, Environmental Standards was conducting QA oversight on emergency responses, including notable incidents like the TVA fly ash Spill and BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
During his three-plus decades leading the niche consulting services firm, Rock built close relationships with others in the industry, including Glenn Millner, Ph.D., CTEH founder and principal toxicologist. Rock recalls his initial introduction to CTEH on an emergency response. Later, the teams would serve side-by-side on projects, which he says fostered “mutual admiration for each other’s work.” Eventually they asked, “Why aren’t we doing more work together?”. This conversation would be the jumping-off point for future collaborations, where Rock grew to appreciate CTEH as a “results-driven group of very smart senior scientists” who know how to “get the job done” and are “dedicated to serving clients well.”
Rock is excited to enter the next phase of his career at CTEH, overseeing the continued growth and development of our expert consulting on per and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), both on the environmental side and in the consumer product arena. His new role will merge the two things he’s always loved—technical work and business development for CTEH and Montrose. After nearly 40 years in the industry, he says he’s “still having fun” and looks forward to what’s to come at CTEH. Welcome, Rock!
