When having a business meeting with Specialty Welding and Turnarounds’ (SWAT) three leaders — President and Co-Founder Johnny Holifield, Vice President and Co-Founder Jimmy Quick and HS&E Manager Troy Rembert — you feel like you could as easily be watching a college football game with them. Their sharp senses of humor matched with their honesty make you feel like they are people with whom you want to pass a good time. But when you discuss turnarounds and the oil and gas industry with them, you realize their 60-plus years of combined experience, unrivaled industry smarts and determined approaches toward business have prepped them for SWAT’s impressive growth and stellar success. And you want their SWAT TEAM SIX on your side.
“Really, SWAT’s growth has been crazy,” expressed Holifield, who has more than 20 years of experience in the industry. “When we decided to start this business, we wanted to be smart about what work we took and how much we did at one time. A couple of our turnarounds got pushed, and it pretty much made our scheduled turnaround projects overlap. But it allowed us to expand our resources of what we provide for our clients.
“Our goal is to provide an elite service and do everything a special way to set ourselves above and beyond everyone else. When you get to the point where you’re expanding your resources, you worry if you’re going to fail. Are we going to do something wrong? And luckily for us, we’ve killed it. All our projects went great. We haven’t had any issues. We’ve gained a bunch of great new employees. It’s helped us a lot. Also, it has let us know what we’re capable of and what our potential is for the future.”
And SWAT’s future potential appears uncapped. Already having innumerous major turnaround projects on the books for 2016 and 2017, the company’s leaders are prepared for their busy years ahead.
“We’re experiencing exponential growth,” stated Quick. “From all throughout the Gulf Coast to all the way to the West Coast, people are recognizing that and becoming our customers. 2016 is shaping up to be a record-breaking year for SWAT, while 2017 is going to be a great year as well. To help with this amount of work we’ve taken on, we’ve brought on some additional key supervisors and various professionals who round out our team nicely.”
SWAT’s mechanical division
Those key supervisors and various professionals come in the form of SWAT’s newly minted mechanical division. Mark Simeon, a construction manager with more than 28 years of experience in the industry, serves at the helm of the division. Holifield explained they decided to add the mechanical division so their division can focus on piping, heating and welding while Simeon’s division focuses on exchangers, towers and drums.
“The mechanical division is something that is getting more work, and we let it grow,” said Quick.
“The mechanical division has been performing really well,” added Holifield. “They’ve done some work in Indiana. Right now they are in Louisiana. A lot of refineries use a lot of the people in our mechanical division as coordinators for their projects. And now the mechanical division is doing start-up assistance for a lot of major refineries, since they have performed so well on other refinery projects.”
SWAT TEAM SIX
With the addition of its mechanical division, SWAT is a full-service, 100-percent turnkey turnaround company. However, the company offers a secret weapon: the SWAT TEAM SIX, a group of talented professionals who quickly mobilize to handle any project that comes their way. These welders, pipefitters, technicians and managers are among the best in the business, and they work tirelessly to handle your project with an unmatched level of professionalism and an unwavering attention to detail. These attributes were apparent at a recent turnaround project at CountryMark.
“On a Thursday morning, the decision was made to shut the crude unit down to wash a distillation column,” said CountryMark’s Maintenance Coordinator and Fire Chief Tom Hoehn. “There were 11 exchangers to be cleaned during this outage. Friday morning, a crew from SWAT was at the facility with a hydroblasting crew en route. For the next seven days — while the crude unit was running at a reduced capacity for two days, shut down and column washing was completed in three days and the unit was brought back on-line within the last two days — the SWAT team safely disassembled, cleaned and reassembled exchangers at a pace above and beyond expectations. They were the only one of three contractors contacted who said they could mobilize within 24 hours, and they did.
“Three days after [the SWAT team] left the plant, two more exchangers started plugging off. Again, within 24 hours’ notice, SWAT’s team was on-site to assist by working safely and tirelessly to get the unit back to capacity.”
Safety taken to the next level
Not only does SWAT’s TEAM SIX exceed expectations, but it also starts every project with a top-down safety approach. Its leaders also ensure their team is equipped with the best safety equipment for the job.
“Safety actually starts with the manager, the vice president or president of safety all the way down to the craftsperson on the job,” explained Rembert. “Our corporate involvement is plugged into the turnaround.”
“We have been on every turnaround — Jimmy, Troy or me,” added Holifield. “One of us or a combination of us has been on every jobsite since we started. We do that to a) show our support to our client and show them we’re there for them and involved and b) show our employees we care about them and safety is important. If you show them from the top down that we are out there and back up what we preach, then they know we’re serious.”
SWAT’s leaders show they are serious about safety by purchasing safety equipment that performs better and more efficiently than the required types.
“We’ve invested a lot of money in safety,” stated Quick. “The investment alone is huge. It’s not only the PPE, but it’s also the equipment.”
“Fall protection is probably the No. 1 thing people worry about the most,” elaborated Holifield. “You can buy safety harnesses as low as $50-$100. The safety harness people recommend that adjusts really easily is way more expensive. We set a precedent that we buy that harness for all our workers. Maybe one out of 10 plants will recommend that harness, but we felt it’s more important we implement utilizing that better safety harness across the board. We buy the best ones.”
SWAT’s employees also take computer-based training (CBT) courses, where they study everything from the proper way to conduct work in confined spaces to the smart ways to handle fall protection.
“We make our employees take CBT courses, so they have a refresher before they go to a jobsite,” explained Holifield. “Even though we’re a contractor, we wanted to train our people like those big refineries train theirs. We want to show how vital safety is. You can preach, teach and coach, but at the end of the day these guys are responsible for the way they do their jobs. We equip them with everything they need to perform their jobs in the safest and most efficient ways possible.
“That’s why we’re there. That’s why we show up to explain to them how important it is. That’s why we coach and supervise them on the job. It’s a process.”
For more information, visit www.swatservice.com or call (225) 644-1200.
