Having a background in the O&G industry has worked out well for Bryson Hancock, founder and president of PBI International, LLC in Pasadena, Texas.
Hancock was selling downhole chemicals in the Permian Basin and the Haynesville Shale but was looking for something to do on his own. He discovered a business for sale with a positive cash flow — which also happened to be in Houston’s O&G industry.
PBI International’s Bryson Hancock reflects on company’s meteoric rise
Bryson Hancock, President, PBI International
The business was a sample shipping logistics company with three employees, specializing in dangerous goods, when Hancock purchased it in 2019.
“Right before COVID-19, I had the time to get in front of enough customers to listen to what their needs were,” Hancock said. “Their needs were as simple as vendor consolidation. The key to the service industry is listening to your customers and giving them what they need. So that’s what I did — simple as that.”
As a result, PBI International added a new service similar to what it was already doing with dangerous goods; it started hauling hazardous bulk waste. Hancock then went back to the same customers and informed them that he’d added a new service line. They responded that he needed to be doing even more.
That’s when Hancock looked at its competition. “I said, if we want to get into this, we’ve got to go full turnkey. That’s what we decided to do from that second forward — then COVID-19 hit. So we had a full year to think about how we were going to do this,” he said.
The PBI founder further explained that hand sanitizer prevented his company from going out of business during the pandemic. He related that a large chemical producer’s revenue skyrocketed during that time because of how much acrylic acid PBI was shipping for them, which it used in the production of hand sanitizer.
There was no hard date when COVID-19 was over for us, Hancock said. “We kind of waited, and then I pressed ‘Go’ in February 2021.” Go meant that PBI received its USDOT number and started making moves toward becoming a full turnkey service provider.
In the span of two years PBI International has grown into an industrial, soft crafts, environmental and mechanical service provider with 380 employees and multiple locations. The company is focused on plant infrastructure maintenance programs that enable customers to reduce plant downtime, solve corrosion and abrasion problems as well as eliminate environmental concerns.
Hancock said what separates PBI from its competition is its “ability to be very fluid and flexible to meet our customers’ needs quickly to reduce downtime. Our competition are these large conglomerates that have to go through numerous approval processes, which can take two weeks or even longer, whereas I can do it in 10 minutes.” He added that PBI can quickly react and service customers with immediacy.
Being a turnkey service provider means there are no third parties involved in projects. “It’s our mechanical group, our scaffold, our soft-craft personnel, our environmental industrial, it’s all PBI,” said Hancock. “This will be our sixth turnaround to do as a turnkey provider,” he added, referring to a project PBI is undertaking.
Plant managers have informed Hancock that his team performed the smoothest turnaround they’ve ever seen. “I think it’s because of our ability to internally communicate amongst the different service lines,” Hancock said. “And having one point of contact on site that runs everything and coordinates everything. What a huge difference; so we’re having great traction with that.”
For more information, visit pbi-international.com or call (346) 361-0800.
