Vortex Companies is a Houston-based trenchless rehabilitation firm founded in 2015 by Mike Vellano, now running more than 1,700 employees across 50-plus locations. The company both performs the work and manufactures what the work uses: cured-in-place pipe liners, geopolymer and hybrid mortars, UV curing systems, sewer robotics and condition-assessment sensors. Crews handle manhole rehabilitation, geopolymer and CIPP lining, pipe bursting, grouting and inflow-and-infiltration control for municipal water and sewer systems nationwide, plus industrial and in-building work. Vortex has grown largely by acquisition, most recently taking on Cincinnati spray-lining contractor Municipal & Contractors Sealing Products in September 2026, which added five states of Midwest DOT-approved culvert and manhole work.
What separates Vortex from a straight rehabilitation contractor is the shelf of brands standing behind the crews. The company puts more than 75 products and systems in its catalog, sold to other contractors as well as installed by its own field teams. United Felts manufactures CIPP liners; MaxLiner USA covers the small-diameter end; Quadex GeoKrete and Parson GeoLiner are the geopolymer mortars; Structure Guard is the epoxy line. A specifier can therefore write a Vortex material into a document and still competitively bid the installation, or hand both to the same organization.
The geopolymer chemistry is worth separating out because the two products are not interchangeable. GeoKrete is formulated for corrosion resistance in high hydrogen sulfide service and bonds to concrete, brick, stone, steel and plastic substrates. Parson GeoLiner is a fiber-reinforced mortar with more than 70 percent pozzolanic content, described as a true geopolymer, and is offered on the basis of higher strength, lower permeability and good adhesion to damp surfaces compared with ordinary cementitious lining. Both are placed by spin-cast or spray gun. For specifiers working outside the United States, GeoKrete carries DIBt approval in Germany and WRc approval in the United Kingdom, and Vortex states a certified reduced carbon footprint for the product.
Manhole and wet well work follows a set order rather than a single coating pass: assessment, structural renewal, corrosion protection, then a top coat sized to the exposure, with the build adjusted for conditions such as freeze and thaw cycling. The Structure Guard epoxies are 100 percent solids. The company puts thousands of completed structures behind that method and quotes service life extension of up to 50 years.
The geography is more granular than a national claim. Field operations are grouped as Southwest, Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, Coastal, Western, Rocky Mountain, Florida, Minnesota and Mid-America divisions, with locations in Texas, Utah, South Carolina, Maine, New Jersey, Georgia, Alabama, Virginia, California, Montana, Florida, Minnesota and Iowa, two facilities in Germany, four McAllister offices in the United Kingdom, and one in Quebec. Head office is 16945 Northchase Drive, Suite 2200, Houston. For public owners, Vortex also runs co-op procurement services, which is a cooperative contract route to award rather than a fresh solicitation, and a single number, 855-949-3441, routes both product and service enquiries. Alongside the field services the catalog includes sewer robotic systems, condition assessment sensors and software, and manhole inserts, so a utility can buy the inspection tooling and the remediation from one source.
