DATA MINER

Former geologist Russell Schindler’s data sampling hits the big time

By Kierstin Gunsberg

Traverse City’s SampleServe is streamlining the sampling process and gaining national contracts along the way.

CEO Russell Schindler says it was mild ire that first motivated him and his team to create software that would increase the accuracy and efficiency of collecting and recording data.

Founded in 2001, SampleServe started with environmental sampling, something Schindler describes as an arduous process of hand-recording with a lot of “double-handling” of data.

Data was jotted onto paper, then handwriting had to be decipered and entered into a program. Schindler figured there had to be a better way.

The company tinkered around with ways to eliminate steps while maintaining data integrity, an idea that was a gradual evolution rather than a sudden breakthrough.

“This was not like (a) flash-bulb, brilliant idea,” Schindler said. “There were little, tiny tweaks over the years where we kept adding more software, more revisions.” ed web apps, websites that smartphones recognize as an app, but require full-time connectivity.

Eventually, SampleServe incorporated the technology as a perk to their sampling services.

“We realized that we had all of this data digitally and our clients would like that data,” he said. They were right.

As SampleServe’s digital capabilities grew, their clients began approaching them about purchasing the unique software. They wanted to do their own sampling while using SampleServe’s software to input and analyze the data.

Schindler, referring to his educational background, says initially he wasn’t sure.

“I’m not a software company. I’m a geologist,” he said.

He eventually embraced the idea and began offering the input and analytics technology as a standalone product, working and reworking it to fit each client’s needs.

While SampleServe’s roster of these niche-specific web apps include resources for cannabis sampling, environmental sampling, and more, all of the software consolidates historical, field and analytical data into a single source, which Schindler says enable fasater educated decision-making and risk reduction between field and lab.

“I could see why people would want to use it,” he said. “And so it took us about a year to reconfigure everything so that we could allow third-party people to enter data.”

But, by 2018, the company was bootstrapped by the cost of the software development, so Schindler says they had to take on investors to finish the software before they could release separately brand-

Now, their wastewater sampling web app, SampleSWR, is attracting contracts from around the country. SampleSWR reduces the time it takes to test wastewater for the presence of COVID and flu viruses, he says.

The web app generates all the graphics, showing people where the contamination is, where it isn’t, what the concentrations are and which direction it’s headed, says Schindler.

“So we can pretty much tell them everything they need to know in terms of the current status and historical status,” he says.

SampleSWR eliminates the need for paper in the field, meaning quicker results and responses. Photo courtesy of SampleServe.

If offering sampling services and accompanying software seems like it would be lucrative to a bootstrapped company during a global pandemic, Schindler says it wasn’t.

“The initial impact wasn’t good,” he said. “Having to adapt to working from home and having our customers and potential investors put everything on hold for a period essentially caused a two-yearlong slowdown in growth.”

Like most of the world, Schindler and his company spent the following months biding time. Two years into the pandemic, they partnered with a COVID testing company out of Chicago, ShieldT3, that wanted to use SampleServe’s innovations.

“Obviously from that point on, because of the level of service that we could offer and the technology available by ShieldT3, this sewer-sampling logistics software service has been expanding rapidly since then,” he said.

SampleServe’s technology, in conjunction with ShieldT3’s own testing process, cuts down the time between collecting wastewater samples from large facilities and putting precautions in place.

At the end of each day, the large facility collects a small sample from the composite container and overnights the sample to a lab.

“Within 90 minutes after receipt, the lab can determine whether or not anyone that had used that building’s facilities the previous day had a communicable disease that they were looking for,” he said.

A new agreement with ShieldT3 is going to utilize SampleServe’s technology on a much larger scale for cities and airports for reporting to the Centers for Disease Contol and Prevention’s national database.

It’s something Schindler says will result in a “substantial expansion and multiplier” to the company’s current monthly income.

In addition, ShieldT3 is now using this same type of technology at dairy farms to help detect the presence of dairy farm pathogens which could include salmonella, E. coli, and listeria.

No matter what testers are looking for, and in what species, Schindler explains that collecting test samples from wastewater vs. swabs or other more invasive means quickens the detection of and response to communicable disease.

“Both humans and animals start to excrete detectable DNA of these pathogens roughly five to seven days prior to being communicable or experiencing symptoms,” which he said allows for “an earlier response and mitigation, whatever form that may take, against further spread.”

He also says that SampleServe is finalizing a substantial contract with an undisclosed firm based in Texas. It’s a contract that should further expand SampleServe’s reach, with its software being used to facilitate the testing of over 60,000 municipal water samples throughout the Lone Star State.

Since the recent surge in new clients, Schindler says he’s divested the sampling division altogether, choosing to focus solely on demand for their software.

Although the success is unexpected, the former geologist is just fine with it.

“If you would have told me 12 years ago that I would own a software company, I would laugh at you,” he said. “But here I am.”