Brilliant Environmental Services founder and owner Philip I. “Phil” Brilliant recently joined Jodi Grinwald on the Today is the Day Changemakers Podcast for a wide-ranging conversation about environmental consulting, entrepreneurship, family, community involvement, business setbacks, and the relationships that have shaped his career.
The September 2, 2026 episode comes during a milestone year for Brilliant Environmental Services. Founded in 2006, the Toms River-based environmental consulting and remediation firm is celebrating its 20th anniversary.
For clients who know Phil primarily through environmental investigations, site remediation, underground storage tank projects, LSRP matters, or commercial property transactions, the conversation provides a different perspective on the person behind the company.
It also explains a great deal about how Brilliant Environmental approaches its work.
Phil’s story is not one of uninterrupted business success. It includes starting with limited resources, building an environmental career from the ground up, growing companies, making mistakes, facing serious financial challenges, rebuilding, and learning to rely on people with expertise outside his own.
Those experiences have influenced a straightforward philosophy: know your field, ask questions, surround yourself with knowledgeable people, treat relationships seriously, and keep working on the problem until there is a practical path forward.
An Environmental Career That Started With an Unexpected Conversation
Phil graduated from Rutgers University’s Cook College with an environmental science background, but environmental consulting was not originally his only career plan.
He considered becoming an environmental attorney. As graduation approached, however, he decided he was ready to begin working rather than continue directly into law school.
His entry into environmental consulting came through an unexpected conversation in 1988. Phil met Tony Cole, who was building an environmental company and looking for employees for a New Jersey office. Phil submitted his résumé, was hired, and began the career that ultimately led to Brilliant Environmental Services.
That first opportunity put Phil into the field at a time when New Jersey’s environmental consulting and remediation industry was developing rapidly.
By 1993, he was ready for another challenge. Phil joined Environmental Evaluation Group in Toms River and helped develop its environmental business. In the podcast, he describes growing the company from four employees and approximately $400,000 in annual revenue to 68 employees, four offices, and more than $9 million in annual revenue by 2003.
Following a merger with an engineering company and a relatively short period working within the combined organization, Phil decided to start again.
That decision ultimately led to the creation of Brilliant Lewis Environmental Services in 2006. After his original business partner departed in 2010, the company became Brilliant Environmental Services.
Twenty years after the company’s founding, Brilliant Environmental continues operating from Toms River and serving property owners, businesses, developers, attorneys, institutions, municipalities and other clients across New Jersey.
What Does an Environmental Consultant Actually Do?
One of the most useful portions of Phil’s conversation with Grinwald comes when she asks what he finds most fulfilling about environmental work.
Phil compares his work to the work his sister performed during her career as a pediatrician.
A doctor identifies a problem, determines what is causing it, and develops a way to treat it. Phil sees similarities in environmental remediation.
An environmental investigation may begin with questions.
Is a property contaminated?
Did an underground storage tank leak?
Has petroleum or another contaminant affected the soil?
Has contamination reached groundwater?
Could contaminants be affecting indoor air?
How far has a release traveled?
What needs to happen before a contaminated property can be remediated, redeveloped, sold, financed, or brought through the appropriate regulatory process?
Phil described his role on the podcast as being something of an “environmental doctor”—investigating contaminated sites and helping determine how to fix them.
It is a simple analogy for work that can become technically and regulatorily complicated.
At Brilliant Environmental Services, that work can include environmental due diligence, Preliminary Assessments, Phase I and Phase II Environmental Site Assessments, Site Investigations, Remedial Investigations, soil and groundwater sampling, underground storage tank investigation and remediation, LSRP services, brownfield redevelopment support, remediation, and regulatory closure.
The objective is not simply to identify contamination. It is to understand the environmental condition of the property and determine what needs to happen next.
The Job Is to Solve the Environmental Problem
Phil also makes an important distinction during the interview about the role of an environmental consultant.
Environmental problems can involve former industrial operations, petroleum companies, dry cleaners, commercial properties, underground storage tanks, historical discharges, and many other circumstances.
The consultant’s job is not to make assumptions about the people or companies involved.
The job is to determine what happened, understand the environmental conditions, evaluate the available data, and develop a technically sound response.
That approach is particularly important in New Jersey, where a contamination issue can involve technical investigation, remediation decisions, property transactions, regulatory requirements, contractors, laboratories, engineers, attorneys, LSRPs, and other specialists.
Clients need answers they can use.
What is known?
What still needs to be investigated?
What is the regulatory requirement?
What are the available remediation options?
What is the next decision?
Those questions are central to the work Brilliant Environmental performs for clients throughout New Jersey.
Twenty Years in Business Did Not Come Without Difficult Years
The podcast also addresses a chapter of Brilliant Environmental’s history that Phil does not try to hide.
After years of growth, the company encountered a significant financial problem related to the economics of a major client contract.
Phil explains that a change in the contract’s pricing structure meant Brilliant was losing money on work it was performing. By the time the full impact became clear, the company was facing a substantial gap between outstanding obligations and incoming revenue.
The response was painful. Phil reduced the company’s workforce dramatically, assumed more of the financial and administrative responsibilities himself, negotiated with vendors, and eventually made the decision to pursue Chapter 11 reorganization in 2019.
Then COVID-19 arrived.
Instead of presenting that period as a story of effortless resilience, Phil describes what actually mattered: professional advisers, employees, vendors, clients, honesty about the situation, and a willingness to acknowledge what he did not know.
His advice to other entrepreneurs during the interview is especially relevant:
“You know something. You don’t know everything. Surround yourself with people smarter than you in the areas you need.”
That principle extends beyond running a company.
It is also how complicated environmental projects should be approached.
A successful remediation project can require environmental scientists, geologists, LSRPs, laboratories, drillers, remediation contractors, engineers, attorneys, property professionals, regulators, and specialists in technologies or regulatory programs.
Knowing when additional expertise is needed is part of doing the job correctly.
Relationships Matter in Environmental Consulting
One theme runs throughout the entire Today is the Day Changemakers conversation: relationships.
Phil discusses friendships dating to childhood, his relationship with his mother, employees who have worked alongside him for much of their careers, clients and vendors who remained with Brilliant during difficult periods, and the professional and community relationships he has developed throughout New Jersey.
That emphasis on relationships has practical meaning in environmental consulting.
Environmental problems rarely arrive at convenient times.
A homeowner may discover a leaking heating oil tank during a real estate transaction.
A developer may uncover an environmental condition that changes the economics or schedule of a redevelopment project.
An attorney may need technical environmental expertise to understand data or support litigation.
A business owner may receive an environmental report filled with terminology but still have no clear idea what needs to happen next.
A property owner may discover that contamination from decades ago is now affecting a transaction today.
In those situations, technical qualifications matter. Communication does too.
Clients need someone willing to explain what the data means, what the regulations require, what choices are available, and what the next step should be.
The Lessons Started Long Before Brilliant Environmental
Some of the most personal moments in the episode concern Phil’s childhood.
Raised primarily by a single mother in Somerset County, Phil describes a household where money was limited and education was treated as a priority.
His mother took a job at Rutgers University in part because the educational benefits could help make college possible for her children. Phil ultimately attended Rutgers, as did his sister. His mother later returned to school herself and earned her college degree at age 50.
Phil also tells a childhood story that stayed with him.
As a young boy, he would help his mother prepare bills by putting stamps on envelopes. One day, trying to help before she came home, he found what he thought were postage stamps and placed them on the envelopes.
They were the family’s food stamps.
He had not understood the financial significance of what he had found. The experience became one of his earliest lessons about how hard his mother was working to support the family.
Today, Phil honors his mother in part through a scholarship supporting high school seniors as they continue their education.
A Lesson in Giving That Still Influences Phil Today
Another story from the podcast helps explain Phil’s approach to community involvement.
After his mother died, Phil and his sister opened the trunk of her car and found gifts.
His mother believed you should not arrive at someone’s home empty-handed. She kept gifts available so she could give something to people—even, Phil recalls, to someone she did not know who happened to be celebrating a birthday at a restaurant.
For her, connecting with another person did not require a business reason or an existing relationship.
You simply recognized the person.
Phil sees that lesson reflected in his own life today. He spends considerable time answering questions, introducing people, helping people find resources, talking with young professionals, and connecting people who may be able to help each other.
It is also one reason Brilliant Environmental’s role in New Jersey extends beyond individual environmental projects.
Environmental Expertise Should Be Shared
Phil has long believed that environmental professionals should educate as well as consult.
He has lectured on environmental investigation and remediation topics and was an original member of the New Jersey Site Remediation Professional Licensing Board.
He is also a co-founder and CFO of Continuing Professional Education Services (CPES), which provides professional education programs, including courses for environmental professionals.
That commitment to education matters because environmental regulations and remediation technologies are difficult for people outside the industry to interpret.
A client should not need to become an environmental scientist to make an informed decision about a property.
The consultant should be able to explain the issue.
That means translating laboratory data, regulatory terminology, conceptual site models, investigation results, remediation alternatives, and closure requirements into information a property owner, attorney, developer, lender, municipality, or business owner can actually use.
Community Leadership Beyond Environmental Consulting
The Today is the Day Changemakers episode also explores Phil’s involvement outside Brilliant Environmental.
Over the years, he has served businesses, nonprofit organizations, professional organizations, faith communities, and community initiatives. He also created Simply Brilliant as another way to discuss issues affecting Ocean County and New Jersey.
Simply Brilliant began as a section of the Brilliant Environmental website for articles, videos, and other media. It later developed into Phil’s own video commentary and eventually expanded to a weekly Sunday radio program on Beach Radio.
The radio program gives Phil an opportunity to talk with local leaders, business owners, nonprofit professionals, educators, and other people involved in the community.
For a company like Brilliant Environmental, community involvement is not disconnected from environmental work.
Environmental consulting is fundamentally local.
A contaminated property is part of a neighborhood.
A brownfield is part of a redevelopment plan.
A leaking tank can affect a homeowner and surrounding properties.
Groundwater contamination can extend beyond property lines.
A former industrial site can become tomorrow’s housing, commercial development, public facility, or open space.
Understanding New Jersey environmental issues therefore requires more than understanding soil and groundwater. It requires understanding communities and the people who live and work in them.
Kindness and Respect as Business Principles
Near the end of the interview, Phil returns to two words that have become central to his public conversations: kindness and respect. They may not sound like environmental consulting terminology, but they have a place in professional work.
Environmental projects can involve significant money, property values, regulatory deadlines, legal disputes, development schedules, and stressful decisions. People can disagree about responsibility, cost, scope, strategy, and risk. Those disagreements do not eliminate the need for professional communication.
For Brilliant Environmental, credibility is built through the work: investigate carefully, understand the facts, explain the findings, bring in the right professionals, address the environmental problem, and keep the client informed.
Twenty Years of Brilliant Environmental Services
The podcast arrives during an important year for Brilliant Environmental Services. The company was founded in 2006 and celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2026.
Those 20 years include successful projects and difficult ones. They include business growth, setbacks, rebuilding, regulatory changes, new remediation technologies, longstanding employees, new professionals entering the field, and thousands of decisions made on behalf of clients.
Phil’s conversation with Jodi Grinwald provides some context for what has remained consistent through those changes.
Environmental problems need to be investigated carefully. Clients deserve understandable answers. Relationships matter. Expertise should be shared.
And when a problem becomes difficult, the answer is to understand it better and determine the next practical step. That is the same approach Brilliant Environmental brings to contaminated properties throughout New Jersey.
Have an Environmental Question? Start With Brilliant Environmental Services
Environmental problems are easier to address when you understand what you are dealing with.
If you are buying or selling commercial property, dealing with a leaking underground storage tank, investigating soil or groundwater contamination, planning redevelopment, responding to NJDEP requirements, addressing an LSRP matter, or trying to determine the environmental condition of a property, Brilliant Environmental Services can help you establish what is known and what needs to happen next.
Brilliant Environmental provides environmental consulting and remediation services from investigation through cleanup and regulatory closure, giving clients access to consulting, LSRP expertise, field investigation, remediation capabilities, and project coordination through one firm.
