Boston Government Services acquired by Bernhard Capital Partners
The acquisition comes as Boston prepares to serve as Chair of the East Tennessee Economic Council in 2023.
Oak Ridge-headquartered Boston Government Services LLC (BGS), a multi-time honoree on the Inc. Magazine listing of the 5000 fastest-growing privately held companies in the U.S., has been acquired by Bernhard Capital Partners, a services- and infrastructure-focused private equity management firm located in Baton Rouge, LA.
Through the acquisition of BGS and a second transaction involving Richland, WA-based Sterling Engineering & Consulting Group LLC (SE&C), Bernhard Capital Partners will establish a dedicated platform to serve the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). BGS is an engineering, technology, and cybersecurity firm supporting government programs, national laboratories, national security facilities, nuclear operations and complex projects. SE&C provides executive, project management, business development, and technical consulting services focused on the DOE complex.
“The acquisitions of BGS and SE&C provide unique and valuable capabilities for our platform and will meaningfully expand our premier consulting and field service offerings around the DOE complex,” said Chris Dillon, Managing Director at Bernhard Capital Partners. “As the DOE and broader commercial industries continue to invest ambitiously in clean energy, energy security, modernization and transitioning our energy grid and national infrastructure, the expertise of the BGS and SE&C teams will be invaluable to driving the long-term success of these essential national, regional and local projects. We look forward to working closely with Harry (Boston), Duane (Schmoker) and their talented teams as we build an exceptional platform and execute on a shared vision to better support a diverse base of mission-critical government and commercial clients.”
As described in this teknovation.biz article from 2020, Boston founded the company in 2007 with a goal of combining the best talent he could recruit with high value products and services to “make a difference for our clients and support missions of national importance.” SE&C was founded seven years later by Schmoker to provide executive management and technical consulting services to organizations in the federal and commercial markets focused primarily on energy, environmental remediation and national security.
“The opportunity to join Bernhard Capital’s DOE services platform and partner with the SE&C team provides additional resources and capacities for the BGS team to continue delivering the best engineering, technology, cybersecurity and program management solutions for our clients, from strategy and conception to implementation and execution,” Boston (pictured here) said. “The Bernhard Capital team’s operational expertise and deep familiarity with the complexities of our business make them the right partner to position BGS for long-term growth, and we are well positioned to continue providing high-quality, efficient and committed services to our clients as part of this platform.”
Terms of the transactions were not disclosed. According to the news release announcing the transactions, BGS and SE&C will continue to be led by their respective management teams with both founders serving as Presidents of their respective units, while benefiting from the advantages of the shared platform and Bernhard Capital’s strategic partnership.
Boston began his career as a research scientist at the University of Wisconsin and moved to Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in 1984, eventually advancing professionally to run the environmental clean-up program at the lab. Lockheed Martin, the prime contractor at ORNL at the time, sent him to the Hanford Site in the State of Washington where he eventually became Deputy Manager of DOE’s Richland Site and Manager of DOE’s Office of River Protection before returning to the private sector and moving back to Oak Ridge in 2005.
In the 2022 listing of the Inc. 5000, BGS ranked #2,107. It was the fourth year in a row that the company had made the list which ranks companies based on a three-year growth rate that is determined as follows: [(Recent Yearly revenue – Base Year revenue) / Base Year revenue] x 100 = total growth percentage.
The acquisition comes as Boston prepares to serve as Chair of the East Tennessee Economic Council in 2023.
