By David A. James

hen planning large projects, developers need a basic layout for the site and often assistance with essential permitting. Fairbanks-based 3-Tier Alaska: Property & Land Surveying can help get things underway.

“We specialize in civil and environmental engineering and land surveying,” 3-Tier Alaska Owner and CEO Nicholas Ringstad says.

3-Tier Alaska is a longstanding company that offers expert specialized work in all three areas. The company also performs civil engineering, which he says is “mostly related to residential road design and septic system design.”

Additionally, the company has added environmental engineering and consulting to its list of services. “We do a large amount of environmental remediation,” Ringstad says. “Soil screening, remediation, wetlands delineations and permitting. A lot of NEPA [National Environmental Policy Act] and EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] permitting as well.”

“He was a dual-licensed professional engineer and professional land surveyor,” the younger Ringstad says of his father. “I would guess 75 percent plus of his revenue was in the survey world. He kept the business pretty small. It was really my only job growing up, even through college.”

“That mix of backgrounds with business and economics plus engineering actually turned out to be great in terms of being a business owner,” he says.

In 2018, as his father neared retirement, Ringstad decided to buy the company. That same year he also purchased Northland Surveying, and in 2021 he acquired Travis Peterson Environmental Consulting, which added the environmental component of their business.

“We stair-stepped into where we are now, which is twenty full-time people and six or seven part-time people,” Ringstad says.

3-Tier Alaska operates state-wide, from the Aleutian Islands all the way up to North Slope and everywhere in between.

Often, Ringstad says, “a customer will buy a big chunk of property and contact us.” For the engineering side of the job, he says, “We’ll design road work. And sometimes the developer will say, ‘Hey could you also design individual septic systems?’”

The company ensures that all of this is done in accordance with municipal, state, and federal environmental regulations, which are frequently changed and updated.

“We did a lot of that layout and design. We did a lot of survey work. We secured a nationwide permit for that new boat ramp on the river. And it’s been wildly successful,” Ringstad says.

Ramras says 3-Tier Alaska did all the civil work and permitting for a reindeer viewing area, motor coach parking, the new Love Alaska Hotel, and the necessary roads and structures within a small area. “They helped us create a Mr. Rogers Neighborhood project on a skinny 10-acre site along the Chena River,” Ramras says.

Calling 3-Tier Alaska “the best civil engineering outfit in the state of Alaska,” Ramras says, “Their work was brimming with imagination.” He adds that it is “imaginative, competent, friendly, and fun. We give them an A+ all around.”