Like many great businesses, SWCA has humble beginnings.

In 1980, Dr. Steven W. Carothers (the “SWC” in SWCA) was working as Curator of Biology at the Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff when the museum suffered budget cuts and eliminated his department. Not wanting to leave clients hanging, Steve got permission to complete outstanding projects, including extensive research on the Colorado River in Grand Canyon National Park. Steve needed an office, and his friend John Running, a renowned photographer, offered him an empty closet in a corner of his studio on San Francisco Street. From that tiny space, Steve’s client list grew.

By 1988, SWCA had grown to approximately 20 employees. While we were offering a suite of natural resource consulting services, we continued to subcontract cultural resources work to other firms. Later that year, the opportunity presented itself when the Museum of Northern Arizona terminated its archaeology program. SWCA quickly hired archaeologists from that program (and others).

RMW Paleo Associates – a paleontology and cultural resources firm in Mission Viejo, CA – was acquired, establishing SWCA’s first office in California.

Looking to expand into Portland, SWCA acquired the well-established firm of Fishman Environmental Services.

Having already taken on projects in the Pacific, SWCA solidified our presence by acquiring the Guam arm of PHRI, a cultural resources consulting firm based in Hawaii.

SWCA expanded our West Coast presence in 2014 with the acquisition of Turnstone Consulting, an environmental planning firm in San Francisco.

In February 2018, with the retirement of John Thomas, the board of directors selected Joseph J. Fluder, III, then Vice President and COO, to become SWCA's CEO. Joseph joined SWCA in 2003 as a water resources and GIS specialist in the Albuquerque office. He’s held a variety of technical, client-focused, and leadership positions throughout his time and remains engaged with clients, business development, and project execution to this day.

In 2019, SWCA expanded our presence in the Carolinas by acquiring REAP, a renewable energy and historic preservation firm. This acquisition expanded our capabilities in renewable energy and cultural resources, and allowed the company to better serve clients throughout the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic regions.

As SWCA expanded into the Southeast, we brought more environmental experts into reach for our clients across the country with the acquisition Onsite Environmental Consulting in Jacksonville, Florida.

SWCA’s presence and service offerings in the Mid-Atlantic expanded significantly with the addition of an established group of environmental consulting professionals in the Philadelphia area who have worked together for more than 20 years and bring more than 200 years of combined Strategic Response Management and Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) experience.

SWCA expanded our restoration expertise in 2024 with the acquisition of River Design Group (RDG), a leading ecosystem and river restoration firm. This milestone bolstered our technical capabilities in stream, river, and wetland restoration, dam removal, fish passage, watershed assessments, remote sensing, and land surveying across the western U.S.