Fluor Federal Services, a company created seven years ago in an experiment intended to spur economic diversification, now brings in more than two-thirds of its revenue from sources outside Hanford.

The company continues to be the most successful of Hanford's former "enterprise companies," with 69 percent of its 2003 revenue from outside of Hanford.

Meanwhile, the other three former enterprise companies appear solid, but still rely on Hanford for the majority of their incomes.

The four companies -- Fluor Federal, Cogema Engineering, Duratek Technical Services and Lockheed Martin Information Technology West -- are the results of a Darwinian experiment begun in late 1996, when Fluor Hanford won Hanford's main operations contract.

A big reason Fluor won that contract was that the Department of Energy liked its proposal for creating new jobs to diversify the Tri-City economy. That included creating six so-called "enterprise companies."

Those six were part of a complicated plan that split previous lead contractor Westinghouse Hanford Co. and its two main subcontractors into a 13-company team led by Fluor Hanford.

Fluor and six subcontractors were "inside-the-fence" permanent members of the team. Six enterprise companies were created "outside the fence."

A survival-of-the-fittest evolution followed as the 13-team concept proved to be too unwieldy. Fluor gradually reabsorbed several "inside-the-fence" contractors and two of the enterprise subcontractors.

Fluor Hanford phased back the amount of guaranteed Hanford work to the enterprise companies until ending the guarantees a couple of years ago. Now all four surviving firms compete on a level playing field with other companies bidding for Hanford companies.

Now those four companies exist in a twilight zone in which their employees are not part of Hanford's official work force, although the majority do all their work at Hanford.

Here is how the four enterprise companies have evolved:

Fluor Federal Services

This is the second year that Fluor Federal's non-Hanford revenue has made up the majority of its income.

In 2001, the engineering and construction management company's revenue was $123 million, with non-Hanford work accounting for 25 percent. That grew to $195 million in 2002, with non-Hanford work making up 53 percent of that amount.

The company's projected revenue for 2003 is $256 million, with 69 percent -- about $177 million -- coming from non-Hanford work.

"We've had a pretty big growth year," said Fluor Federal President Bob Heck.

Much of the surge can be linked to a multiyear U.S. Army contract to design and supervise construction of a missile test facility and upgrade two communications stations in Alaska.

The company now employs roughly 1,000 people. Of that, 766 work in Richland, compared with 750 in 2002. The rest work at Fernald, Ohio; Greenville, S.C.; Charlotte, N.C., and elsewhere in the United States and overseas, including in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East.

Lockheed Martin Information Technology West

Early this year, Richland-based Lockheed Martin Services, a computer support services company, became the West Coast branch of Maryland-based Lockheed Martin Information Technology.

Frank Armijo, LMIT's West Coast general manager in Richland, said his office's non-Hanford work increased from 20 percent of its total revenue in 2002 to 25 percent in 2003. He declined to release actual revenue figures, but said they also increased.

The Richland office's work force also grew from about 550 people in 2002 to roughly 600 in 2003.

The office has been receiving portions of federal contracts that LMIT Corp. has obtained -- which include computer support work for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and federal Centers for Disease Control.

LMIT also is acquiring another company -- Affiliated Computer Services of Dallas -- which could send extra work to the Richland office, Armijo said.

Other non-Hanford work at the Richland office includes contracts with the Air Force, Social Security Administration and Veterans Administration.

LMIT's Richland office remains Hanford's prime computer support provider. Armijo said it was given a goal to trim Hanford's computer support costs by $9 million in the past two years, but actually cut $16 million.

Duratek Federal Services Western Operations

Duratek's Richland company also has become a regional headquarters -- in this case for Western federal contracts.

Its revenue increased from about $25 million in 2002 to $35 million in 2003. About 70 percent of the 2003 work came from Hanford.

The company employs about 220 people, including 190 in Richland. The Richland office had 170 workers in 2002.

This company always has handled an unusual mix of work, with its primary expertise in packaging and transporting radioactive and hazardous chemical materials. It also manages a huge specialized central Hanford landfill for contaminated debris for Bechtel Hanford. And it has one contract to remove contaminated soil from the K and F Reactor areas.

The company also is in charge of some environmental monitoring at Hanford, and with controlling contaminated animals, insects and plants on the site.

Duratek also has gained some toeholds in projects at DOE sites at Los Alamos, Rocky Flats and Idaho Falls.

In 2004, Duratek's Richland office plans to expand its work at Idaho Falls and Los Alamos, and try to obtain more soil removal work at Hanford, said Bernie Laverentz, manager of the office.

"You don't wean yourself from Hanford. But you don't have all your eggs in the Hanford basket," Laverentz said.

Cogema Engineering

Cogema believes it is ready to grow again after shrinking in recent years. It is now competing for contracts at Hanford and other DOE sites.

Its annual revenue has dropped from $20 million in 2001 to $17 million in 2002 to $14 million in 2003. Meanwhile, Cogema's work force has shrunk from 120 in 2001 to 105 in 2002 to 90 in 2003.

Cogema Engineering President Martin Talbot believes the decline has stopped. "Everything has stabilized in the last six months," he said.

The company has just opened a facility in northern Richland to do nondestructive exams of items, which is the firm's main expertise.

About 10 percent of Cogema's work is outside of Hanford, but that percentage is growing.

The company has picked up some engineering and analysis work at DOE's Yucca Mountain site, which Talbot hopes will lead to work at other DOE sites. The company also is eyeing Boeing Corp. as a potential customer.