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When the co-founder and CEO of Corporate Environmental Risk Management, Inc. was 12-years-old, his future looked bleak. Both parents had died and he was being raised by an older brother in a Black suburb of Mobile, Alabama. Fast-forward to 2026, where the grown version of that 12-year-old is a respected business leader who has chaired organizations such as Council for Quality Growth and the Atlanta Business League. He is also the chief decision-maker for a company that employs 130 people and generates more than $20 million a year.

This edition of the Atlanta Business League’s TELLING OUR STORY podcast does more than share the life of a successful entrepreneur. It explains how early experiences, even devastating ones, can be retooled to create pathways toward success.

This podcast will focus primarily on the life of Albert G. Edwards. He has a list of personal accomplishments that includes military service, being a college football scholarship recipient and a national junior Olympian. He and his best friend from high school, Marcus Reese, both graduated from Mattie T. Blount in Mobile, Alabama. They met each other during a United States Army Corps of Engineers summer program. The young men went their separate ways but reunited unexpectedly at the same company in Atlanta, GA. Their combined engineering skills synced perfectly with the developing industry of environmental remediation and inspired them to start a STEM-related company.

But the story of CERM and its founders isn’t just about the services it offers, the awards it has won or its incredible growth. It’s about who has benefited because it exists. Al and Marcus were passionate about workforce development. They both wanted a company would allow young people to work alongside professionals. They knew from experience that letting someone see a future of possibilities could help them to avoid pitfalls. So the story of CERM is also a story about student shadowing. It is a story about mentoring and it is a story about putting risk protocols in place that operate as they are supposed to when unexpected tragedy takes place.

CERM co-founder, Marcus Reese, died in 2017. But the company celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2025 because he and Al built something on paper and in practice that was meant to last. More than that, this podcast introduces you to a company and a CEO who understand that high values and solid principles applied consistently deliver dividends that outweigh all risks.