Richard A. Mortensen, PE, established the Tampa office of a large nationwide engineering company in 1984. He left that company to found Mortensen Engineering, Inc. in 1988. Beginning in 1984 and continuing throughout his professional career, Mr. Mortensen has consulted in the environmental field. In fact, he performed Phase I environmental site assessments before there were basic guidelines. 

During the environmental industry's early years and into the 1990s, Mr. Mortensen was active in assessing and testing properties contaminated with petroleum products and chlorinated solvents throughout Central Florida, as well as in Maryland and North Carolina. While his registrations are now dormant, Mr. Mortensen was a registered engineer in Missouri, North Carolina and Maryland at one time.

In the 1990s, MEI, and for a time Mortensen Environmental Services, Inc., was involved in significant contamination projects and produced hundreds of Phase I and II environmental site assessments for numerous private clients and large banks such as SunTrust and Bank of America. The company's largest projects involved chlorinated solvent contamination at industrial sites in North Carolina, Maryland and Tampa. Richard C. Reynolds, LAS' key executive, joined MEI in 1991 and managed most of these complex assessment projects.

In 1999, Land Assessment Services, Inc. was formed to cater to large clients taking down significant tracts of land for development, and to specialize in large-scale Phase I environmental site assessments on commercial and industrial sites and follow-up Phase II environmental site testing. LAS has assessed thousands of acres of agricultural and ranching land since inception, and most recently, has been the principal environmental consultant on two wide-stretching urban renewal projects in the City of Tampa involving numerous city blocks. Research for these sites extended into the late 1800s. LAS also consulted on a project to determine the dredging history of Tampa's Hillsborough River dating back to the late 1800s. Recently, LAS completed a Contamination Screening Evaluation Report of a 3-mile stretch of Bell Shoals Road in Bloomingdale near Tampa. LAS continues to maintain a large client base of private parties, developers, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection through its petroleum product cleanup pre-approval program, and banks, including SunTrust Bank, J.P. Morgan/Chase, and Bank of America. 

Phase I environmental site assessments have evolved over time with the advent of the ASTM standards (1526-05) and the EPA's new AAI rule, and LAS is trained and experienced in delivering an environmental site assessment product that conforms to this new rule. Moreover, the Mortensen companies have always produced a work product that has by far surpassed the standard of practice and local norms. As a result, our clients have time and time again turned to us on the most complicated sites with the most at stake. We will go anywhere in the continental United States, from Tampa, throughout Florida, the southeast, etc. to assess a property, as we are proficient in the use of nationally available environmental site research data.

LAS offers a comprehensive array of environmental services, in addition to our Phase I environmental site assessment services, and will arrange to provide other specialty services, such as complex site remediation, through a team of trusted sub- consultants and peers.

LAS produces its Phase I environmental site assessments in hard copy originals, PDF documents transmitted by e-mail, FTP or disk, and in the increasingly important XML format if requested.