- Details
- By Chez Oxendine
- Real Estate
Native Strategies, the engineering firm founded by Cherokee Nation citizen Steven Hollabaugh, has been acquired by Consor North America Inc. in a deal Hollabaugh says will expand its capacity for tribal infrastructure projects and allow it to serve First Nations in Canada for the first time.
Miami-based Consor announced the acquisition Oct. 1. Financial terms were not disclosed.
The deal gives Native Strategies’ 19-person team access to Consor’s broader workforce and specialized engineering expertise. Hollabaugh told Tribal Business News that demand had exceeded his firm’s capacity, forcing it to turn down work. He began merger discussions in April.
“We were growing so quickly, and the need that we’re seeing, the impact we’re able to make within Indian Country… we weren’t able to reach it fast enough,” Hollabaugh said. “We were having to say no all the time to our clients and saying we don’t have the staff, or we can’t deliver this, or we can’t get to that point quick enough.”
Native Strategies provides engineering and construction management services for transportation, water, wastewater, and fiber‑optic projects. Hollabaugh said the firm’s staffing limitations and lack of specialized water treatment expertise had become major barriers to taking on larger projects.
“One of our limiting factors was water treatment and wastewater treatment is very niche; it takes a lot of technical expertise,” he said. “Consor brings in a lot more technical expertise to be able to help us continue to help the tribes.”
Consor describes itself as an employee‑owned firm backed by New Mountain Capital. It has more than 1,800 staff across the United States and Canada. The company provides advisory, planning, engineering design, structural assessment, construction management and program delivery services.
In a statement, Consor CEO Mindy Shimanek said the acquisition would bring additional expertise and resources to tribal infrastructure projects.
“Consor and Native Strategies share a deep commitment to serving the unique needs of tribal nations, and together we can bring greater expertise, capabilities, and resources to support their infrastructure priorities,” Shimanek said. “We found strong alignment in our core values, culture, and focus on developing our people. That shared foundation makes Native Strategies a natural fit.”
Hollabaugh said he will become Consor’s vice president and market sector director for tribal and First Nations projects.
“From a day‑to‑day perspective, nothing really changes for our team, for our clients, for everything that we’re doing,” he said. “The mission and the vision are the same. It really gives us a much bigger depth from an expertise perspective.”
Hollabaugh said the firm had long been interested in serving First Nations but lacked the logistical capacity to do so.
“We have always had the desire to work with First Nations… but we’ve always had to say no from a logistics perspective,” he said. “Consor does have offices in Canada and is working with some of the First Nations already up there.”
Hollabaugh said Native Strategies’ staff is going to support Consor’s efforts to map and oversee construction of fiber optic broadband networks for First Nations in Canada.
