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Stevens & Stevens Inc. stores tons of records for businesses that don't want documents cluttering their offices.
By SHARON L. BOND
© St. Petersburg Times, published June 13, 2001
PINELLAS PARK -- A glance around the innards of the large Stevens & Stevens Inc. building off U.S. 19 makes it clear that business records still are very much paper records.
Stacked on shelves are 250,000 boxes containing paper trails that companies don't want cluttering their offices but cannot let go of just yet.
The company's 600 to 700 customers include doctors, lawyers, banks, mortgage companies, builders, architects, temporary employment agencies, hospitals, motels and hotels. The boxes may include canceled checks, mortgage payment schedules, X-rays or sleep studies.
"Anybody who generates records is a potential client of ours," said Ralph E. Stevens, president. He runs the company with his two sons, Rhett W. and R. Marshall, both of whom are vice presidents.
"We are the alternative to paying $18 per foot downtown," said Ralph Stevens, referring to companies keeping tons of records in their more expensive office space. Stevens & Stevens charges about $3 per cubic foot per year for storage. It also does imaging of records and stores backup computer tapes.
"In the event of a disaster, all they need to do is pull their tape from here, restore it to their computer, and they are up and going again," said Rhett Stevens.
Ralph Stevens said agencies such as the Internal Revenue Service and the Food and Drug Administration are among the key reasons that companies establish and maintain records.
"We have clients with as few as five boxes to clients with over 20,000 boxes," said Ralph Stevens. "We can service small clients as well as large corporations."
Customers list the contents in each box they will store with the company. The boxes get bar code stickers that log into the Stevens & Stevens computer system to show where each box is on the many shelves in the storage area.
"We can find a box here in about a minute," Ralph Stevens said.
Stevens & Stevens will retrieve items from boxes or whole boxes and deliver them to clients.
"Every customer pays monthly storage per box," Marshall Stevens said. "The services are based on what they need. If they never need their records, then all they pay is storage. If they need a file delivered, then there is a retrieval fee and delivery fee.
"We can fax records to them or do copying of records for them."
Rhett Stevens said the company can deliver items in two hours, the same day, the next day or even after hours. The company does 50 to 60 deliveries per day.
Robert B. McClellan, also a vice president, is in charge of the company's imaging department. He said that only about 10 percent of Stevens & Stevens' clients choose the more expensive film version for storage of their records. But many, such as law firms or insurance companies, want imaging to manage active files.
"In document intensive litigation, we can scan and put attorneys' case records on CDs for them," McClellan said. "We can build a whole database (to use electronically) instead of digging through boxes of paper."
McClellan said the cost for imaging varies from 6 cents to 60 cents per page, depending on the amount of detail required.
Stevens & Stevens also sells software and hardware to set up customers with their own imaging systems.
Documents are kept in climate-controlled storage. There is 24-hour security and a vault where backup tapes and the like are kept.
Marshall Stevens said the company brings in about $100,000 per month, excluding real estate it leases.