In addition to the various environmental efforts taking place on campus, two recent alumni have made their own green impact serving as the founders of Blue Reserve, a bottle-less water cooler filtration system company based in Portland, Maine.

Brandon Pollock ’10 and Nick Friedman ’10 created Blue Reserve in June 2010 after their graduation from the College. The company provides an alternative to bottled water by installing water coolers in offices and homes to reduce the environmental impact of bottled water as well as to mitigate the health concerns of BPA.

During their senior year, Pollock and Friedman cultivated their idea and worked with Career Center Director Roger Woolsey, who helped them get in touch with professors and alumni who could help them move their project along. “We wanted to address important environmental concerns through business so we decided on bottled water,” Pollock said. “We saw it as an inefficient and wasteful industry so once we looked closer into the issue, we realized that the workforce provides a great venue to address these environmental concerns because you can allow a company to go green while simultaneously reducing its costs.”

Since their graduation, Pollock and Friedman have moved to Portland where they work full time. They do most of their paperwork at their apartment but also travel, attend meetings and assist new customers in offices. The company has recently expanded, employing a plumber, a sales representative in New Hampshire and two telemarketers.

Businesses make up the majority of the company’s clients, although Blue Reserve does provide drinking water services to homes as well. The clientele resides mostly in Maine, but there are accounts in New York, Rhode Island and Boston. “We might expand the company in Boston because of the larger market there, but Maine has been a great place to start a company,” Pollock said.

The University of New England recently switched over all their water coolers to Blue Reserve water coolers, making the University Blue Reserve’s largest client. Pollock said the College is working to install more Blue Reserve coolers on campus, and one is already present in the faculty lounge in the Lovejoy building.

The College’s alumni center has provided a useful tool for the two entrepreneurs. They were featured in Colby Magazine earlier in the year, which sparked the interest of several alumi eager to help them move their project along. “Just because you graduate doesn’t mean that you’re not still a part of Colby,” Pollock said.