Lab specializes in hydrological soil studies

Inside is the Daniel B. Stephens & Associates Soil Testing and Research Laboratory, where a team of five employees analyzes soil samples from customers all over the world, such as a mining company in South America, for example, or a landfill operator in Australia.

While some of the work is standard geotechnical testing of the basic properties of the soil itself, the DBS&A lab is one of just a handful of soil labs in the country to do more specialized hydrological analysis to determine how water moves through soil under a variety of conditions.

The hydrological studies of soil are not particularly complicated — some of the test apparatus could pass for sophisticated high-school science projects — but they’re “very difficult to do right,” said lab manager Joleen Hines.

“There’s some art to it,” she said.

The lab is an integral part of Daniel B. Stephens & Associates, a water-resources consulting firm founded in 1984 by Dan Stephens, who got interested in the environmental field while an engineering student at Penn State.

N.M. Tech connection

Stephens spent the 1970s alternately working in the field, primarily investigating potential sites for nuclear power plants, and going back to school to further his training. Fresh from earning a doctorate from the University of Arizona, Stephens accepted a teaching job at New Mexico Tech in 1979.

“Being a professor, people sought me out for consulting work,” he said.

Thus the seed was planted for what is today a $20 million consulting company with 120 employees at seven locations in California, Texas and New Mexico. From the beginning, the company did a variety of work, including environmental cleanup, technical support in water-rights litigation and water-resources work.

“I thought it was too risky to have all our eggs in one basket,” Stephens said.

The early years of the company were typical of what one would expect of a college professor’s side job, initially based in his house then at a motley assortment of buildings in Socorro. The employees were mostly young grad students.

On top of running the company and a teaching load made heavier by a colleague’s departure, he also was serving as chairman of Tech’s geosciences department. Plus, he was married and raising a family.

Changing paths

“I went on a sabbatical in 1988 and I thought about the rat race I was living. I thought something had to change,” he said. “The consulting thing was going well so I thought I’d stay with that.”

He resigned his teaching position in 1989 and, with about a dozen employees, relocated the company to Albuquerque. The company moved to its current, just more than 20,000-square-foot headquarters building at 6020 Academy NE in 1991. Four years later, as jobs picked up in Texas, it reached the 100-employee threshold.

The lab had been set up in a converted conference room in the interior of the Academy building but, as the workload of soil testing and hydrology analysis grew, Stephens said, “It became too noisy and a little too dirty.”

In 1999, the lab was moved a short drive away to Osuna Park, which leasing agent John Petty said was originally built in the late 1970s as small office/warehouse units. Today, the property looks more like a strip shopping center because most of the tenants are offices and shops.

The company’s growth was beginning to catch up with Stephens, who was balancing the duties of chief executive with those of principal hydrologist.

“I was struggling to do everything,” he said. “We determined it would be better to have someone run the company from the business end and allow me to do what I like to do and do best.”

Recruiting new CEO

Michael J. Bitner, who was working for another consulting firm in Albuquerque, was recruited as president and CEO in 2001. Stephens was freed to focus on his role as principal hydrologist, although he assumed the formal role of chairman.

Stephens and Bitner had earlier met during the course of business. The two share some unusual life parallels, although separated by roughly a decade or so.

Both were born in the same hospital in Allentown, Pa., and attended Penn State. Both worked for a time at the same company in Long Beach, Calif. Bitner had also gotten an advanced degree from the University of Arizona.

Daniel B. Stephens & Associates, which had good market share in New Mexico, began to position itself for growth in California and Texas.

“We put a big emphasis on efficient project delivery in terms of focusing on what the client wanted rather than what we thought the client needed,” Bitner said. “We established a bit more focus on the type of clients and the type of work we wanted to do. We made some significant organizational changes to make that possible.”

Tripling in size

The water-resources group tripled in size, with much of the growth coming from work in Texas although business in New Mexico grew as well. Water-resources consulting generally involves the analysis, planning and design of water-supply systems.

“For example, you determine whether a community has a supply of water for the next 40-50 years,” Stephens said.

The company had done some work in California and, in 2004, opened the first of what would eventually be three offices in the state. Bitner said California now generates roughly 20 percent of the company’s business.

In 2005, DBS&A went through a transition in ownership from the founder to the senior management team and established an employee stock ownership plan. The transition stemmed in part from larger competitors inquiring about buying the company.

“We’ve been approached by some excellent companies,” Bitner said. “There’s a cultural difference. That’s been the biggest rub in discussions we’ve had with bigger firms.”

DBS&A continued to see business grow during the recession and its lingering aftermath, he said, with 2010 going down as its best year ever. Last year, revenues were up 5 percent.

The lab in particular had outgrown its 5,000 square feet at Osuna Park, which includes some space for storage of field equipment, prompting the company to hire Jim Smith of CBRE, a commercial real-estate services firm, in May to look for a larger location.

They settled on a 9,600-square-foot unit in a flex building at 4400 Alameda NE, near Balloon Fiesta Park, vacated by a homebuilder. The unit has refrigerated air conditioning, which will provide the climate-controlled environment that the lab needs, said the building’s leasing agent, Mike Leach of Sycamore Associates. The lab is moving in April.