OPTIMAL FIELD SERVICES: 4 values that deliver downstream excellence

One of the first steps in creating a successful business is choosing a memorable and poignant name for the enterprise - one that encapsulates excellence, trust and aspiration. An essential part of sustaining that business is delivering on those promises. One might even say that having a good name with a proven record of performance is an optimal combination.

Headquartered in Geismar, Louisiana, Optimal Field Services' elite team of craftsmen do just that by providing comprehensive industrial services to customers across the country. Their teams at sites and offices throughout the South give their clients powerful, productive and proven results through their specializations in turnaround services, specialty welding, capital projects and routine maintenance.

After years of working in the field, Optimal's small, founding team decided to break from tradition and build the company they wanted to work for. They believed in starting a business rooted in trust, its team and the idea that everyone matters and has a part in getting the job done right.

Values-based growth and scalability

At its founding in 2013, there were only five full-time employees at Optimal. Today, it is a multi-state operation with 135 full-time employees and a network of thousands of elite craftsmen and women.

With its growing teams and client base, Optimal takes great pride in driving the trade forward by leveraging its deep industry knowledge and strong company values. The accountability and common values Optimal's team shares come from across the company because they understand that results start with trust.

In line with those trust-based values and the team's data-driven decision-making, Optimal joined the Crest Industries' family of companies in 2016 and opened the door to further growth, support and success across all areas of the business. Like Crest Industries, an organization with a strong legacy of serving its clients for more than 60 years, Optimal is dedicated to supporting its customers and being there when they need it most.

This connection with Crest Industries provides an extra layer of security and accountability for the Optimal team that gives them the flexibility to endure and succeed when challenges arise. One example of this is that despite the emergence of COVID-19 in 2020, and its massive disruption to the refining and petrochemical industry, Optimal was able to retain its entire workforce.

"We didn't lay anyone off, at all, in 2020," said Optimal Field Services President Shane Doss. "We take care of our people -- it's what we do. How could we help our clients, employees and their families during COVID if we did not retain our people through the tough times?"

Instead, Optimal used that turbulent time in the industry to diversify its client base and grow its people by training them to improve how they serve and support clients. Doss explained, "We focused on growing our teams and bettering ourselves as individuals and as a company."

Optimal takes great pride in developing its team members into strong leaders. With robust company-wide employee development and training programs, the team leverages teachings from talent development and team dynamic experts, and has adopted the philosophy of "bigger does not mean better, but better is how we get bigger," from Simon Sinek. Optimal has consistently made every effort possible to help its people succeed in all aspects of their lives both on and off the job.

This long-term mindset also means Optimal expects its leaders to look beyond the services they offer to ensure they are making an even larger impact on their employees, clients, stakeholders and communities.

Project by project, client by client and challenge by challenge, Optimal portrays a better way to lead and conduct business by leveraging the company's core values.

Optimal's reverence for its company values is far more than a catchphrase. The company's central strategy is built upon a foundational set of four core values: we take care of our people, we are our word, we value relationships and we have something to prove.

A people-first mentality

Value number one: We take care of our people.

From leadership to those on the frontline, everyone on the Optimal team recognizes that its people are the most powerful tool on every job. The team propels Optimal's success, and everyone's voice matters regardless of their position on the organizational chart.

With the frontline at the center of everything the company does, Optimal believes in hiring only the best members to its teams, and specifically selecting individuals who naturally fit the company's culture and values.

"We do not recruit individual craftsmen," Jeremy Forbes, VP of Operations, explains. "We retain the most sought-after project managers and superintendents that bring their own core teams of skilled craftsmen and women. When people come to work for Optimal, we know their past, proven quality and safety record before they arrive on a jobsite. But it's our values and the way we treat our team members that allow us to retain the best talent in the industry."

Doss discredits the idea of assembling an A-team within an organization's workforce. "Everyone in the company should be A-team (caliber) with top-notch performance," he said. "Our clients repeatedly tell us about their past experiences with bigger turnaround companies that overcommit and under deliver on projects utilizing B and C caliber teams. For us, that's not good enough. [Safety and quality of work] is what makes Optimal, optimal. When you hire people that match your culture - not just people to man a job - and focus on being the best you can be, everyone is the A-team."

"We want to make sure that our clients are confident when they hire Optimal for a job because they know no matter who we send, they are going to be the right people," Doss continued.

Optimal prides itself in treating its team members like family, and "when you treat people like family, they also deserve to be protected like family," said Jared King, Director of Safety. "Safety is not just something we practice. Safety is embedded in our core values and everything we do. What has made our safety record different - One OSHA Recordable and Zero Lost Time since our existence - is that we hold people accountable and responsible; that may not be true at different companies, but here, it is driven from the top, down."

Craftsmen who repeatedly return to work for Optimal know they are well cared for. This type of team-based and customer- centered focus is rare in the turnaround industry, and many people on the Optimal team recognize that.

A matter of trust

Value number two: We are our word.

The Optimal team understands the magnitude of what is at stake during a project: the client's reputation, the community's well-being and the team's safety. That's why Optimal drives quality and safety and brings an unprecedented level of consistency and trust to the petrochemical and refining industries.

"We are our word - commitments and promises matter," said Greg Varnell, VP of Optimal's Texas Division. "We commit ourselves to honesty, integrity and delivering on our promises."

This philosophy became undeniably apparent in 2021 when Hurricane Ida ravaged the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana. Though the devastating storm brought layoffs, interruptions and shutdowns to a myriad of regional industries, Optimal stayed true to its commitment by providing around-the-clock service to its clients. Optimal delivered its signature high standards of quality performance and service to its clients when they needed it most.

"When you have trust-based teams, it makes it easy to live your values every day," said Tiffany Sauseda, Optimal's Director of Business Operations.

The lifeblood of OFS

Value number three: We value relationships.

The Optimal team recognizes that relationships are built on trust, and they are the lifeblood of the company. This key understanding helps Optimal focus on building long-term relationships with its employees, customers and vendors alike.

In 2020, Optimal's leaders realized that most of its projects were comprised of three major client companies. The team spent years cultivating and expanding the relationship with these partners, but COVID-19 revealed a greater need to expand its partnership with clients in a diverse set of industries.

"We realized we needed to diversify," said Doss. "We didn't take away or reduce the level of attention and quality of those existing clients - we actually increased the scope and type of work with them as we started to build relationships with new customers."

The team's work to diversify their client base made Optimal stronger than ever, and they never sacrificed their signature high levels of safety and quality. Today, their client roster now includes household names and industry giants in the oil and gas, petrochemical, and renewable sectors.

"We are excited about these relationships that we're growing and building," explained Matt Parker, Business Development Manager, adding that he believes in investing in a long-term approach to business, compared to the more common short-term method of selling by all means necessary.

Currently, the top 90 percent of Optimal's revenue comes from repeat clients from a diverse set of industries, and despite global challenges to the supply chain and the economy, Optimal's list of client relationships is growing.

When asked why he believed that client growth continued despite industry trends, Doss responded, "we listen and lead by example. Optimal wants to understand its customers' needs so we can develop a custom solution specific to our clients. We are able to help clients and prospective partners in our industry see what lies ahead so they, too, can act swiftly when they encounter challenges along the way."

A competitive spirit

Value number four: We have something to prove

Even as Optimal approaches its 10th year of operation, the team has an energetic desire to exceed expectations from clients, competitors and themselves.

"We passionately pursue excellence and strive to prove ourselves at all levels of the organization because we know it's not just our reputation on the line, it's our clients' too," said Doss.

Whether in the office or on a jobsite, the teams across Optimal bring a high level of passion and pride in the work they do, which leads to better results for their clients.

"Our values, our people and our work ethic prove we're powerful and able to compete with anybody," said John Hutcherson, Senior Project Manager for Optimal.

"We want to be the best option for the client," Hutcherson explains. "The team we have here is a team that's built to win. Even if we're up against the tightest deadline or the hardest job, we know we can still perform better than most, but we also know that there's always room to be better."

The bigger picture and beyond

This passionate attitude of continuous improvement with a goal of scalability is further aided by Optimal's membership in the Crest Industries' family of companies. The businesses includes eight other organizations focused on manufacturing, engineering and design, distribution and natural resource management. With Crest's industry breadth and nationwide footprint, Optimal is a part of something much bigger than itself.

"Crest is a great parent company; its leaders want us to be the best that we can be," said Doss. "Their partnership ensures that Optimal maintains the resources required to grow. This allows Optimal to stay agile and able to quickly make strategic decisions to pivot when needed. We can then pass these benefits and time saved on to our customers."

Optimal understands that it is important to not only support its employees and stakeholders, but to also do its part to improve the world around them. This altruistic attitude stems from the companies' belief that the path toward progress should be a united effort.

We are our word - commitments and promises matter," said Greg Varnell, VP of Optimal's Texas division. We commit ourselves to honesty, integrity, and delivering on our promises.

Like other industry leaders, Optimal increasingly recognizes the importance of creating robust programs to support ESG initiatives. As discussion surrounding the climate crisis continues to grow, the quest for carbon neutrality is becoming a predominant influencer in decisions about building new partnerships and policies across the industrial and petrochemical sectors.

Unlike most other organizations its size, the team's company-wide sustainability goals are in line with many energy industry titans like ExxonMobil, Chevron and Dow, and carbon reduction is at the forefront of Optimal's overall sustainability program.

"We know the focus for workers in the field isn't necessarily sustainability, but we do recognize that managers at the top of the procurement chain are deeply concerned about it," Doss said candidly.

For decades, Crest Industries has offset emissions through its ownership and sustainable management of over 100,000 acres of timberland in Louisiana and Texas through its subsidiary Crest Natural Resources. However, the team's focus is shifting to analyzing and reporting hard data to increase accountability and transparency within the organization. Earlier this year, Crest commissioned a third-party evaluation of operations to identify company-wide Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions - in addition to the carbon sequestered by their timberland holdings.

"We went in and looked at every business that Crest owns and reviewed how much carbon we're emitting," said Matt Purser, COO of Industrial Services and Distribution at Crest. The results were exciting as the Crest Industries family of businesses was declared carbon negative for all Scope 1 and 2 emissions.

"More and more companies have come out and said they're going to be carbon neutral by 2050," Purser continued. "But I believe that Optimal is one of very few companies in the industry that can claim we are carbon negative now, even without buying carbon credits," which has become one of many industry solutions.

Purser observed that ESG standards and regulatory bodies require companies to be carbon-neutral themselves, but businesses will also look to their vendors to be equally carbon-neutral and sustainability-focused.

"Our mentality has always been to invest back into our companies, employees and communities, so ESG and sustainability programs have been a part of our strategies for years now," Purser shared.

Looking ahead

As Optimal and its sister companies look to the future, together they pledge to actively pursue continuous improvement because they understand that "the work done today sets the foundation for a successful and sustainable tomorrow," said Crest Industries CEO Kenneth Robison.

The leadership team at Optimal understands that the path to that successful tomorrow won't be easy, but they are excited about the opportunity to impact the industry and make a difference for their clients, teams and communities.

"Overcoming challenges and exceeding expectations is just who we are," Doss concluded. "We'll do what we say we're going to do, but we always opt to try to do more. We deliver the impossible - we welcome those challenges and that's why we're different."

For more information about Optimal Field Services, visit www.OptimalSvcs.com or call (225) 402-0060.

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