Eckard Brandes, Inc.

A short history of Eckard Brandes, Inc.

Founded and incorporated in West Virginia, Eckard Brandes, Inc. (EBD) began providing service to Hawaii cleaning wet wells, catch basins and CCTV’g drain lines in the 80's. The company soon diversified into Honolulu City & County jobs; it smoke tested close to a million feet of sewer lines on the Windward Side, and cleaned storm drains in Honolulu.

In the early 90's EBD started to expand its service line by adding sewer line grouting to its operations. It began to install fold and form pipeliners, and started to develop the Partliner trenchless repair system. At this period, the company's main focus was pipeline cleaning. CCTV inspection, herbiciding and acrylimide joint sealing in Kahala, Hawaii Kai, Honolulu and Kaneohe-Kailua.

In the mid-90s, EBD started expanding into CIPP (Cured In-Place Pipe) lining with the Enchanted Lakes Pilot Project & the Kaneohe treatment plant. Other CIPP installations at AMR & Pearl Harbor soon followed. In the late 90's Eckard Brandes, Inc. ran CIPP operations on Oahu, Hawaii, Maui, and Molokai. The widespread acceptance of the new technology enabled EBD to reduce its cost to the customers.

The founder of Eckard Brandes, Inc. retired at the turn of the 21st century, transferring operations to the present EBD management, and spinning a part of the original company off to Insituform in a friendly deal. The new Eckard Brandes, led by Jeff Iwasaki Higbee and Charles A. Higbee embraced digital technology with open arms and became an industry pioneer in providing digital videos of pipeline inspections to interested clients on DVDs.