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Performance Contractors Powers Their Way into New Regions and Industries
Performance Contractors has spent over four decades cementing their position as a leader in providing industrial construction services across the Gulf Coast. A strategic relationship with one of the country’s largest power companies gave Performance the opportunity to open permanent bases in the Midwest and Carolinas.
Performance Contractors, Inc.
Pathways for Performance
Performance Contractors was founded in 1979, achieving early success with petrochemical industry projects along the Mississippi River corridor between New Orleans and their Baton Rouge headquarters. Over the next 40 years, Performance established offices and fabrication shops in Texas, Mississippi, and Alabama. By 2021, ongoing work with one of the nation’s largest power companies justified setting up Performance offices in its northernmost markets to date: Charlotte, North Carolina and Evansville, Indiana.
The two channels most responsible for Performance’s organic growth are regional expansion and diversifying their areas of expertise, specifically with power. As Performance Contractors Senior Vice President Lee Jenkins explains, “We opened our office in Mobile, Alabama in 1998 for the purpose of diversification. Performance had been focused on the refining and petrochemical market in the Gulf Coast region, up and down the Mississippi River, and over to Houston. The Mobile market offered new opportunities, one of which was power. In 1999, we were fortunate to secure a grassroot cogeneration plant construction project with Alabama power. This was a sizable project that got the new office off the ground and started our path in the power industry.”
From that time, Performance became diversified within the power sector, working continuously for other Southern Company subsidiaries including Gulf power, Mississippi power and Southern power. One noteworthy stepping stone was the Kemper County IGCC project for Mississippi power, a natural gas-fired electrical generation station. Awarded in 2011, the contract required 16.1 million man-hours, and a peak manpower of 4,700 over the project’s 60-month duration.
Performance began working in the Midwest more frequently during that same time. They completed eight projects for the Marathon refinery in Robinson, Illinois, between 2004 and 2008. In 2017, Performance was awarded their largest contract yet for the CF Industries Port Neal Nitrogen Facility Complex in Sergeant Bluff, Iowa — a job that would require 14.4 million man-hours over a 32-month period.
These successes made continued pursuit of power clients beyond its established Gulf-state home base a natural path forward. The Mobile office began pursuing a large power opportunity in 2013. Five years later, they were executing resident O&M work, bi-annual outage planning and support, new construction, and small capital projects for facilities in Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Florida, North Carolina, and South Carolina. This success was a game changer because it provided a steady stream of work in the Midwest, which meant sending up permanent teams of people.
Cody Thompson, who serves as area manager for the new Evansville, Indiana office, was on the initial team sent north to support the Midwestern facilities. “That first job in Edwardsport, Indiana was in a syngas facility, so not a typical coal-fired power plant,” said Thompson. “We had recently concluded a five-year project on the same type of facility in Kemper County, Mississippi. In some ways these resemble refineries, which is a setting Performance is very experienced with. They were looking for a contractor with a petrochemical background to help them maintain it.”
By 2021, the increased power work justified opening full-time offices in both Evansville and Charlotte. The new satellite locations function as regional offices with basic administrative operations, hiring, training, and other human resources activities. In Evansville, 75 percent of the initial team of supervisors remain on-the-job, spread out across multiple facilities. “We’ve spread out the original team and mixed them in with the local workforce by design with the goal of maintaining the Performance culture and experience,” Thompson said. “We don’t want to become the company that these folks used to work for. This approach helps us stay true to our core values of maintaining safety, working hard, and never compromising on quality.”
Overcoming expansion obstacles through relationships
Thompson and Jenkins reflected on the hurdles they have encountered and how Performance has met these challenges. “We didn’t start with a long resume to show these clients relating to their specific equipment. We overcame this by finding local resources, supervision, and talented folks with experience in these types of power-generating facilities. Doing so kick-started our comfort level and helped us become more competitive.”
“There are a lot of things in power plants which don’t exist in the petrochemical world,” Thompson said with a smile. “We’d get asked, ‘Has Performance ever worked on a catalyst change-out? Or an air-heater? Or a boiler?’ Now we can say yes.”
“Any time you are the new kid on the block, there are obstacles,” Jenkins added. “We work in a business where relationships are important. People are comfortable doing business with people they’ve done business with. Prequalification relies heavily on projects you’ve completed, similar projects that they’re considering. ‘If you’re in the Gulf South, how can you support us like a Midwest company?’ These are the obstacles: building confidence and overcoming being an unknown. We’re using our corporate reputation of over 40 years and the reference point of thousands of jobs we’ve executed and successfully completed across multiple industries.”
Ramping up staff and hiring campaigns in new territories comes along with new angles for consideration. Performance is historically a merit-shop contractor, and Indiana was mostly union labor until ten years ago. ”For Performance, supporting the growth of merit-shop career path training and growing our workforce is a top priority,” said Thompson. “The majority of the local workforce here is still union, but the balance is starting to shift since Indiana became a right-to-work-state ten years ago. There’s a place for our model and the pathway for a merit-shop career.”
Performance has executed 55 power projects through its regional expansion in the Midwest and Carolinas. “Our work in these new areas is active and a large part of the power book of business that we have today,” explained Jenkins. “We work with other power companies along the East Coast serving a diverse array of clients. The power industry makes up a significant slice of the pie in terms of our overall corporate volume.”
Performance Contractors powers their way into new regions and industries
Becoming residents in new communities
Performance began community workforce development efforts in the 1990s with programs targeting high school graduates for entry-level positions. Since that time, they have expanded its efforts to the vocational tech schools, universities with relevant training, and military programs. “We get quite involved: spending time, supporting them with materials, and feedback on specific types of training they provide to ensure what they are teaching matches the skills we need to employ,” said Jenkins.
In the Midwest, career fairs and recruiting events are already on the calendar for several community colleges, state schools, and just about any local entity that provides industrial training. Donating pipe to tech schools and industrial training centers has become standard procedure.
Aside from tapping into education and training networks, Performance has sought community engagement through philanthropy and trade organizations memberships. Since moving into Evansville, Performance has joined the Indiana-Kentucky Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) and supported local charities including the United Way, the Guardian Center, the Lunch Wagon, the Genevieve Wade Scholarship Fund, and the All Our Kids network.
“These efforts are part of our broader approach to community support,” explained Thompson. “We want to be known as a resident, and to be viewed as a career opportunity for the people who live here. If we can accomplish that, our work and projects become quite a bit easier.”
The next Performance horizon
The milestones in Performance’s recent history provide a possible roadmap for the future. Past expansion started with gaining expertise in a new industry, forming alliances with industry leaders, and then ensuring enough resources were allocated to satisfy that relationship. The next story could follow the same blueprint for success. Today, Performance is working to further engage clients from industries like paper and pulp, food and beverage, pharmaceutical, and specialty chemical.
“We’re looking to grow our presence and footprint in the market areas where we have established locations,” Jenkins explained. “We’re not necessarily chasing particular volume figures or goals, we’re just trying to grow our business in an effective and controlled manner to ensure we stay the same type of company with the same type of practice: safety, quality, and well-managed growth. These are the core values we want to maintain. We don’t want to stretch ourselves; we work hard to maintain the same type of culture and execution success that we’ve had over the years.”
Learn more about Performance Contractors’ recent projects, or visit perfomance-contractors.com.
