Jun. 11—Jim Damian has put in too much work to walk away now.

The founder of Bakersfield business processes outsourcing company Stria LLC hasn't been paid in weeks, and there's no telling whether that might change. But Damian said he and others are still trying to take care of clients in time zones stretching from New York to Hawaii.

"This situation makes for long days and sleepless nights," he said by email.

Stria may or may not become a casualty of the sudden halt of operations at Fresno-based Bitwise Industries, which in August acquired Stria with a promise to pay the purchase price over two years.

His co-workers at Stria are looking for work elsewhere since being furloughed on Memorial Day, "and I don't blame them," Damian wrote.

"No matter how much we love serving clients — and we do — people can't work for free," he added.

Problem is, despite recent bounced paychecks, he said some at Stria aren't able to just abandon ship.

Hanging in the balance is a respected member of the local business community that has been listed in Inc. magazine's annual list of the nation's 5,000 fastest-growing privately held companies.

Damian's peers are pulling for him and the company to return to normal operations. Like him, they await news on what lies ahead for Bitwise and, in some cases, stand ready to pitch in for Stria.

Chris McGlasson, CEO of LANPRO Systems Inc., a Bakersfield-based managed service provider serving small and midsize businesses, said he and others at the company are deeply saddened about furloughs at Bitwise. Not only has Stria been a valued and longstanding client of LANPRO, he said by email, but Damian has become a dear friend with whom he shares a strong working relationship.

As such, McGlasson said he will do all he can to help Damian and Stria explore options for providing necessary support, whether that means alternative IT solutions, offering guidance or extending LANPRO's own resources. The plan is to collaborate closely and prioritize business continuity, he added.

"We are hopeful that together we can navigate through this situation and emerge stronger," he wrote.

Founded in 2005, Stria employed about 140 people in the business of streamlining services using optical character-recognition software that makes documents fully searchable. The company works with DocuSign to deliver automated services. All but 5% of the company's employees came from Bakersfield.

The purchase by Bitwise was seen as advancing Kern County's ambitions of becoming a technology and business-services hub. Now, Stria's future depends on what happens to Bitwise, which received a commitment of $80 million in venture capital last year, on top of almost the same amount of outside money since 2013.

Continuing furloughs for all 900 Bitwise employees have come as a shock to people inside and outside a company that was working to expand its workforce development, software operations and coworking model to eight other U.S. cities.

The company's founders, both of whom were fired this month, have vaguely attributed the shutdown to venture capital pressures and deals gone wrong. Almost no additional information has been officially released.

A Connecticut public relations professional hired by Bitwise's board to handle questions from news media said by email Thursday she had no information to share about Bitwise.

Bakersfield Adult School Principal Mark Wyatt, a local workforce developer who said he sees Stria as a legitimate technology operation — and Bitwise less so — called Damian a "relentless" businessman up to the task of retooling the company for survival.

"He worked so hard to build a great local company that provides a needed tech service to local business," Wyatt wrote. He predicted Stria "will emerge but may be legally entangled through Bitwise."

Damian, for his part, said he appreciates the grace being extended by Stria's customers "as we all search for a viable plan."

Business editor John Cox can be reached by phone at 661-395-7404.