Bowser-Morner Inc.
Based: Huber Heights
Services: Engineering and testing for government and construction firms.
Employees: About 130, with 90 in Huber Heights, where it's based, and about 30 in Toledo, the company's second largest location. Revenue: About $12 million in 2010, up from $11 million in 2009. (Projection: About $12.5 million in 2011.)
Source: Bowser-Morner Inc.
Bowser-Morner Inc., which has served industrial and commercial construction customers across Ohio and beyond for 100 years, set aside 90 minutes Friday for employees and public officials to celebrate the milestone. Then it was back to the work of materials and soil testing and analysis for its clients.
In the lab and in the field, the company helps its clients in construction make smart decisions, performing sub-surface investigations, soil boring, testing and more. And it has been doing that since Armco employees Raymond Bowser and Arnold Morner bought the original company in 1925. That first firm — Kurz Chemical Lab — had been founded in 1911.
With new owners and a name change, the company has been privately held since 1925, said Steve Bowser, Bowser-Morner president and grandson of Raymond Bowser.
The Bowser family bought Morner’s share of ownership in 1953, but by then, the name was cemented.
“Between my dad and the Morner family, we just decided to keep the name,” Bowser said.
Bowser said his company has worked on or contributed to just about every “major structure” in the Dayton area, including the Kettering Tower, the Dayton Convention Center, the Schuster Performing Arts Center, the redesigned Interstates 70 and 75 interchange, as well as “most major hospitals” from Middletown to Troy.
The company has 130 employees, down from about 200 in the early 1990s.
Bowser credits employees and customers for getting the company to its 100-year mark. He’s well aware that in the future, even as many see a need to address infrastructure issues across the country, governments at all levels are under pressure to control spending. “It’s going to be a challenge,” Bowser said.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2390 or tgnau@DaytonDailyNews.com.
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