NORTHERN TESTING LABORATORIES INC.

• Author: KANE, ROGER
• Position: Brief Article

This Fairbanks company grows in the face of national testing lab closures.

when construction on the trans-Alaska oil pipeline was completed, many of the people who helped build the line left Alaska. Support work also slowed and many in periphery businesses found themselves looking for work.

Mike and Peggy Pollen found themselves in a similar position when Mike was given the option of transferring out of the state for a job as an environmental engineer in either Seattle, Denver or South Yemen with Dames & Moore (now part of URS Corp.).

Because the prospect of leaving the state did not bode well with the Pollen family, they decided to stay in Fairbanks and start their own company. That was in 1977. By 1980, the business got a foothold and the Pollens named it Northern Testing Laboratories Inc.

While Mike was busy establishing the lab, Peggy, now NTL's chief financial officer, ran a small farm replete with chickens, a garden, goats and horses.

The company started out small, but has grown into one of the largest environmental-testing laboratory companies in the state, with analytical labs in Anchorage, Fairbanks and Deadhorse.

Today, NTL employs a staff of 35. With the onset of winter, that number will fall to 31 or 32 people, Peggy said.

Among those employed at NTL are Peggy's mother, who handles collections for the company, and the Pollen's two sons: Jerry, 26, and Jonathan, 28. Jerry is NTL's laboratory manager at the Prudhoe Bay facility in Deadhorse. Jonathan is an environmental technician and the property manager in Fairbanks.

"We also hire employees' children," Peggy said. "Family takes priority here."

NTL a Homegrown Leader

Among the services NTL provides its customers are water and wastewater system monitoring, consultation and operations support, water and wastewater system operator training, microbiology services, environmental chemistry testing, underground storage tank and hazardous waste testing, asbestos and materials testing services and international analytical services.

"On some days we do just about everything," Peggy said.

With the widest scope of Environmental Protection Agency and Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation public water supply certifications in Alaska, NTL is the state's leading supplier of potable water testing services. The company monitors more than 500 public water systems statewide and provides process-control and discharge-permit monitoring for more than 50 wastewater treatment facilities from...