Company History

In 1976, Chester McKee fulfilled a lifelong dream and founded In-Situ Inc. from the basement of his Laramie, WY home. Now residing in a modern manufacturing facility in Fort Collins, CO, In-Situ Inc. has become an international company with over 70 employees that specializes in the design, manufacture, and worldwide sale of scientific equipment for the environmental and water-monitoring markets.

Throughout the years, In-Situ Inc. has become known for innovation, quality, and customer service. In 1984, the HERMIT^® (Hydrologic, Environmental, Remediation and Monitoring InstrumenT) was the first datalogger in the industry to combine field-ruggedness with ease-of-use and high accuracy for pump tests and long-term monitoring. It led to the development of the HERMIT 2000 and 3000 dataloggers. In 1989, In-Situ introduced the world’s first in-well water-level data logger. The TROLL^® 4000, released in 1995, was the company’s first all-in-one datalogger/transducer/temperature sensor and became the industry standard for a complete, self-contained, long-term monitoring solution for groundwater. The name TROLL was chosen because like a HERMIT, it lives for long periods of isolation in the environment.

During the early years at In-Situ Inc., much of the business stemmed from consulting and sales of monitoring equipment to the in-situ uranium mining industry. After the mining industry fell on hard times, In-Situ Inc. began selling its instruments to companies that were cleaning up hazardous waste sites. Throughout this early period, the company developed the practice of closely working with its customers. It is a practice that continues to the present day and is key to designing products that efficiently solve real-world problems. Today, In-Situ Inc. has instruments that monitor groundwater, surface water, and coastal waters. Applications include aquaculture, mining, flood warning, storm water monitoring and more. Future product lines will continue to meet the ever-changing needs of our loyal and valued customers.