Mergers & Acquisitions
SAM Mergers & Acquisitions
As an industry leader, we are continually searching for ways to expand our value-adding client solutions, provide our people with exciting career development opportunities, and add industry-leading talent to our team. We see mergers and acquisitions as a key component of our strategy to meet these goals.
Having successfully completed sixteen acquisitions over the past seven years, we have collaborated with founders to deliver win-win scenarios for our collective clients, stakeholders, and employees. SAM’s entrepreneurial, employee-first culture and expertise have given these founders the ability to accelerate their business, provide their people unparalleled career opportunities, and monetize their most valuable personal asset.
Consider partnering with an industry-leading professional services firm that, at its core, is focused on the same geospatial solutions and construction phased-services that excite you and your team.
SAM is led by geospatial and construction services professionals with deep experience in the same types of services, sectors, and competencies as the leaders of our acquired companies. Add to that like-minded expertise a national presence with the scale and resources to meet any client need, a business development and marketing team led by industry experts, a blue-chip client base, and strong corporate services, and you will have the tools and support needed to grow and flourish in today’s highly competitive AEC marketplace.
KEY BENEFITS OF PARTNERING WITH SAM
People First Culture
From the field to the Executive Management Team, every employee at SAM is a respected and valued part of our team. We help our people grow and build a career with SAM through our dedicated Learning and Development team and ample opportunities for advancement. We foster community with office events, holiday parties, an employee newsletter, and a welcoming environment.
A Strategic Partner
When you join SAM, you gain a like-minded, industry-leading partner with experienced business development and operational staff poised to help you further develop value-adding client solutions to become a trusted advisor to your clients. We invest in state-of-the-art technology and equipment to support and advance your work, including proprietary software and applications to make processes more efficient.
Industry Leading Corporate Services
Our expert corporate services specialists are equipped to partner with you at every stage of the project lifecycle. We support your business from marketing and project proposals to legal, safety, and financial support. We also provide human resources, talent acquisition and administrative support, and a dedicated 24/7 IT helpdesk. All these services provide our client-facing staff the ability to focus on providing the best service possible to clients.
Entrepreneurial Spirit
As a successful entrepreneurial company, we understand that you and your team have ideas/best practices to share that can make us better. Across our organization, we encourage our team members to take the initiative and share ideas and lessons learned from our projects so that we can improve as a whole. Maintaining that same entrepreneurial environment that you have created, we provide the opportunity to build a semi-autonomous growth strategy and grow a business inside of SAM with the support of a business development team that is second to none – 300+ Seller-Doers and Market Leaders – to collaborate with and share relationships.
National Presence
Whether it be a project outside your geographic footprint or outside your scope of expertise, SAM can help you fulfill your clients’ needs. We are experts at rapidly mobilizing assets for our diverse clientele – with one day’s notice, we have geared up 30+ crews to execute a project. With 35+ offices across the country, company-owned aerial acquisition aircraft, top-of-the-line sensors, mobile mappers, and expert staff, we can help you tackle even the most daunting project.
Relief of Risk
SAM’s business development plan is driven by value creation through top-line growth, not cutting expenses to benefit the bottom line. Our stable, diversified business model mitigates risk and cash flow concerns for you, allowing you and your key employees to sleep at night and focus on business development and operations, while providing you the ability to monetize your most valuable asset and diversify/reduce risk of your own personal portfolio.
A Strategic Partner and Relief of Risk
People First Culture and Entrepeneurial Spirit
Industry Leading Corporate Services & National Presence
THE WHIDDON GROUP
David Whiddon
SAM Vice President — Former President, The Whiddon Group
“Joining SAM was a great fit for our company. The national scope and range of SAM’s suite of services have brought new opportunities for growth and development for our team, and greater value to our client.”
HALIS
Geoffrey Sease
SAM Operations Manager — Former President, HALIS
“SAM’s acquisition of HALIS instantly provided us with the resources we needed to keep pace with our clients’ ever-growing needs. Joining the SAM team also provided our employees with long-term career path opportunities to achieve their professional goals.”
MIDLAND GIS
Matt Sorensen
SAM Director of GIS — Former President, Midland GIS
“The onboarding and integration process for all of our employees went extremely well. SAM helped us on a daily basis with learning many of the new processes. Since then, SAM has continued to provide all of our staff with effective support with their dedicated staff for HR, IT, Safety, Marketing, Field Operations, and Applied Technology, to name just a few.”
MIDLAND GIS
Kirk Larson
SAM Local Government Market Lead — Former President, Midland GIS
“Being a part of SAM not only allowed us to expand our footprint in the GIS sector and to serve clients across the country, it has also allowed us to focus on business development. The diversified platform and opportunity to grow within a stable and diverse company provides the security to take risks and allows us to continue to be entrepreneurs.”
HAAG 3D SOLUTIONS
Chris Zmijewski
SAM Vice President — Former President, HAAG 3D Solutions
“SAM has provided the opportunity to diversify our office’s services. Now, offering Surveying, Aerial, Mobile Mapping, and SUE services brings on more staff and expands our services for 3D laser scanning, LiDAR, and more. We truly have a multidiscipline office now.”
Types of Partners We’re Looking For
To support our continued growth, we are looking for partners with similar people-first cultures, service offerings, strong client relationships, and a vision and values consistent with ours. We are especially interested in firms that:
- Are focused on the Utilities, Transportation, Local Government, and Commercial Development sectors
- Have strong experience in Land Surveying, GIS, Aerial Mapping/Inspection, Construction Inspection, BIM/3D Scanning, and Utility Engineering
- Can help us bolster our capacity and capability within our current geographic footprint and help us expand beyond it
- Have a strategic, growth-minded culture and team, excited about new career development opportunities both technically and professionally
Dan Pollock, our Director of Corporate Development, can assist you with all of your Corporate Development needs.
Recent acquisitions
2023
MTPLS Surveying & Mapping
MTPLS Surveying & Mapping is a professional Geomatics solutions company. Headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland, MTPLS offers a variety of services to clients across the Mid-Atlantic Region. With over 150 years of combined professional knowledge and extensive experience working with clients across both the public and private sectors,MTPLS expands SAM’scapacity, experience, and geographic presence.
2023
GeoSolutions, LLC
GeoSolutions, LLC, is a professional geomatics solutions company. Headquartered in The Woodlands, Texas, in the Houston metropolitan area, GeoSolutions has strong relationships with clients in the utilities, transportation, and local government sectors. SAM’s acquisition of GeoSolutions further strengthens our presence in Houston, the largest city in Texas and the 4th largest populated city in the United States, enhancing our ability to recruit talent and expanding our resources and client base.
2023
Carolina Surveying Services, Inc.
CSS is a professional geomatics solutions company. Headquartered in Lexington, South Carolina, in the Columbia metropolitan area, CSS has strong client relationships with national and regional architectural, engineering, and construction (AEC) firms, commercial and residential developers, and municipal and government agencies. SAM’s acquisition of CSS further strengthens our presence and strategic initiatives in the Carolinas and Southeastern markets.
2023
Axis Survey & Mapping
Axis is a professional geomatics solutions company headquartered in Redmond, Washington, Axis has strong client relationships in engineering, public works, construction, and infrastructure-focused clients. SAM’s acquisition of Axis advances its strategic growth plan, expanding the Company’s capacity, experience, and geographic presence in the greater northwest region. Axis was represented by Chinook Capital Advisors in the transaction.
2022
Echezabal & Associates, Inc.
Echezabal is a professional land surveying and mapping company headquartered in Tampa, Florida with additional locations in Deland and Clearwater, Florida. Echezabal is licensed in Florida, with strong client relationships in public works, including the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT), and other municipal and private sector clients
2022
Linewise Aerial
Linewise is an aerial inspection and mapping firm serving clients across the utilities sector. Based in Calgary, Canada, Linewise combined ultra high-definition video aerial mapping technology with advanced inspection techniques to deliver comprehensive analysis to clients, including some of the largest electric utilities in the Western U.S. and Canada.
2021
Ghiotto & Associates, Inc.
Ghiotto is a full-service firm licensed in Florida, with strong client relationships in public works such as transportation, including the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT), and with other local government clients as well as private sectors such as commercial development.
2021
Johnson Surveying and Mapping
A full-service professional land surveying firm serving the southeastern U.S. with licenses in Florida, Alabama, and Tennessee, and with particularly strong relationships with clients in sectors that include utilities, land development, and other public sector clients.
2021
The Whiddon Group
The Whiddon Group is a Texas-based company specializing in utility engineering services and delivering conflict analysis services on projects for departments of transportation, design-build and other contractors, engineering firms, and utility companies.
2021
Marbach
Marbach, Brady & Weaver, Inc. and Marbach-Palm, Inc., collectively known as Marbach, are a multidisciplinary land surveying and engineering company operating in the Great Lakes region. With two offices in Indiana, Marbach has delivered services to clients for more than 100 years and has a strong reputation and deep client relationships throughout the region.
2021
R&S Digital Services, Inc. (R&S)
A leading provider of hosted, web-based GIS solutions available to clients through cloud services. Located in Great Bend, Kansas, R&S’s expertise helped expand SAM’s already strong GIS capabilities for delivering GIS website deployment services across multiple sectors, and particularly for delivering high-value solutions for public sector clients.
2021
John F. Watson & Company (JFWCo)
A multi-service land surveying and consulting firm located in Midland, Texas, specializing in energy and natural resource development. With extensive experience in the electric sector, including numerous renewable and transmission projects, JFWCo’s strong reputation and client relationships throughout the U.S. helped expand SAM’s capacity and solutions for clients in the electric sector, and further diversify our client base.
2020
HALIS
A company specializing in aerial data acquisition and processing across the U.S., and located in McDonough, Georgia. This acquisition expanded SAM’s aerial mapping, processing, and GIS website deployment services.
2020
Midland GIS Solutions
The Midwest’s largest GIS design and consulting firm, located in Maryville, Missouri. This acquisition contributed to SAM’s expansion of GIS capabilities, services, and market engagement.
2019
JMC Professional Surveying and Mapping, LLC (JMC)
A provider of surveying services across the southeast U.S. With offices in Nashville and Knoxville, Tennessee, this acquisition helped further expand SAM’s geographic reach and service offerings.
2019
Haag 3D Solutions (H3DS)
A division of Haag Engineering Company, an innovator in 3D Laser Scanning and Building Information Modeling for the AEC industry. This acquisition grew SAM’s presence in the Northeast and provided the H3DS team the opportunity to expand their services across SAM’s nationwide footprint.
2018
Nobles Consulting Group, Inc. (NGC)
A leading provider of professional surveying services across the Southeast. The investment enabled SAM to continue expanding our geographic range while providing the Nobles team resources and expertise to expand its service offerings.
2016
So-Deep, Inc.
A leading provider of subsurface utility engineering services headquartered in Manassas Park, Virginia. The acquisition leveraged the combined strengths of two AEC industry leaders to enhance project value for clients and expand SAM’s geographic footprint to the East Coast of the U.S.