The owners of Hayden-based AllWest Testing & Engineering LLC have sold the company to its employees via an employee stock ownership plan.

“We feel like this rewards the staff that helped get the company successful,” says AllWest general manager and President Chris Beck, who will remain in his current position.

Roughly 80 percent of the company’s 81 employees are vested in the company. It takes a full calendar year, or 1,000 hours worked, to become vested, according to the company.

Beck says the new ownership arrangement isn’t expected to change the way the company operates. The management team will remain in place, he says.

AllWest is a full-service firm that offers professional engineering, environmental, and construction materials testing services. The company is headquartered at 690 W. Capstone Court, in Hayden, and has satellite offices in at 3005 N. Industrial Lane in Spokane Valley and in the Idaho cities of Lewiston and Meridian.

In 2017, the company experienced record revenue and saw its net income increase 17 percent compared with the year before, Beck says.

“All of our locations have had recent success,” Beck says. “But the Meridian office has hit it out of the park the last two years.”

Beck says he first approached Spokane-based attorney Phil Carstens, who specializes in helping companies establish ESOPs, in 2014.

“The next step was to have discussions with the executive team about whether or not this was something everyone agreed was a good idea,” Beck says.

After concluding it was, AllWest management hired Spokane Valley-based business consultant Dale Stevens, of Break-thru Benefits LLC, to begin the ESOP conversion.

Beck says an appraisal  revealed that the value of the company was between three and five times higher its annual revenue and met the criteria of converting to an ESOP. He declines to disclose the company value or annual revenue figures. 

Beck says he and other shareholders sold their stock to the ESOP. Those shares have been allocated to employees who—over a period of time—will acquire increasing shares and rights to the stock until becoming fully vested as shareholders.

“This structure establishes long-term viability for the company,” Beck says. “Our staff has always taken immense pride in their work. With the implementation of the employee stock ownership plan, each one of them will directly benefit from our success and growth.”

Mitch Keith in 1999 founded Northwest Testing Co., and Beck founded AllWest Engineering Inc. in 2001. They merged their companies to become AllWest Testing & Engineering LLC in 2002. The Spokane Valley office opened in 2004, followed by Lewiston in 2006 and Meridian in 2012, says Beck.

On its engineering side, AllWest provides geotechnical engineering services, which includes working with civil, petroleum, or mining engineers to design land-use plans based on geological site conditions.

Its testing side includes inspecting and testing soils, concrete, asphalt, masonry, and various materials for strength, absorption, shrinkage, density, and other qualities for contractors, developers, designers, and government agencies.

The company’s nondestructive testing division tests for metal defects and fabrication flaws through a variety of means, such as magnetic particle inspection, and dye penetration.

Projects in which AllWest has been involved include Providence Medical Park-Spokane Valley; Parkside Towers, in Coeur d’Alene; and Kootenai Health’s renovation and expansions, also in Coeur d’Alene, Beck says.