The Hot Tandem At Molten Metal

As the man in charge of helping students and faculty at Massachusetts Institute of Technology market their inventions, John T. Preston has seen thousands of ideas. Most never make it off the drawing board. But one day in 1987, a young grad student named Christopher J. Nagel approached Preston after a lecture with a concept that set his pulse racing. Before coming to MIT, Nagel had patented a novel way to dispose of hazardous wastes by dissolving them in a bath of molten metal. The concept was a potential blockbuster, Preston realized. The problem: Nagel had zero business experience, and his hazy notions about how to commercialize his idea lacked coherence.

Two years later, the solution walked through Preston's door in the person of William M. Haney III. Although just 27 at the time, Haney was already a hotshot environmental entrepreneur. His first company, which he started when he was a freshman at Harvard University, provided technology that helped furnaces burn more cleanly and efficiently. Having sold that company for $200 million--and pocketing $15 million--Haney was looking for something else to run. Like an old-fashioned matchmaker, Preston introduced the engineer and the entrepreneur.