In 2015, a legendary brand returned to the industrial services market when KBR joined with Bernhard Capital Partners to form Brown & Root Industrial Services LLC. Today’s Brown & Root, headquartered in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, with regional offices in Deer Park, Texas, and throughout the Gulf Coast, consists of a full range of industrial solutions through its major business lines: maintenance, engineering, construction, on-call construction, turnarounds and specialty services.
Aggressively pursuing the goal
“Brown & Root has grown both organically and through strategic acquisitions,” said President/CEO Andy Dupuy. Beginning with the legacy Brown & Root maintenance organization and a construction team whose leadership has worked together for more than two decades, “we have aggressively pursued the goal of becoming a complete industrial services company in the business.”
Engineering capabilities were added quickly with the acquisition of Baton Rouge-based Wink Engineering in June 2015. “It was the perfect fit,” said Fred McManus, chief operating officer. “We have a flexible, multi-disciplined engineering organization that has specialized in plant services for more than 40 years.”
In late 2015, the company acquired Petrin LLC and its affiliate, Scaffolding Rental & Erection Services. “We now have one of the most respected industrial specialty services organizations in the business,” said McManus, “including expertise in painting, scaffolding, insulation, heat tracing and related capabilities.”
Expanded turnaround services
Brown & Root acquired the MEI Group in December 2016. “The acquisition,” said Dupuy, “brought a new level of expertise, scale and reach to our turnaround services business. It enables Brown & Root to provide more value, compete more effectively and vastly expand our footprint in the turnaround services market.”
With the MEI Group, Brown & Root also acquired a full-service specialty welding business — ASME Code registered, with highly skilled craftsmen and capabilities for welding all grades of steel, alloys and exotic metals — and a specialty cooling tower business, providing maintenance, repair and replacement services for process-unit cooling towers.
Industry-leading safety performance
Brown & Root has industry-leading safety performance statistics and has realized continuous performance improvement in its combined operations. McManus attributes this success to the company’s value-based Zero Harm© HSE Program. “Zero Harm is based on what we refer to as ‘transformational leadership’ at every level of the company,” McManus said. “Transformational leaders believe that zero is achievable, they’re intolerable of incidents, and they understand that we are interdependent — that each person’s actions and decisions impact the safety of everyone.”
Success across business lines
“As the company moves forward in integrating all business lines in 2017, Brown & Root is off to a solid start for the year,” McManus said. “Thanks to the loyalty of our customers and the dedication of our employees, we are realizing success across every service line.”
Brown & Root’s construction team is nearing completion of a successful capital construction project in a petrochemical facility in the Geismar, Louisiana, area. Guy Schexnaydre, president of construction, said, “We’re part of a core team executing a $75 million plant expansion. We’ve had zero safety incidents, and the job is coming in on schedule and within budget.”
The industrial maintenance division, based in Deer Park and led by President Marcus Deal, has grown at an unprecedented rate. “Since we began operations in 2015,” Deal said, “we’ve been awarded 22 new long-term maintenance agreements across North America for eight different companies.” This growth represents an additional 1,600 new long-term employees and bookings valued at more than $550 million.
“Our engineering business is actively engaged in maintaining our existing local client base while pursuing mid-size and larger projects across the Gulf Coast,” said Andy Farris, president of engineering. “We’re focusing on market diversification (refining, petrochemical, midstream, and terminals) that will position us for growth in 2017 and beyond.”
According to Group President Mike Shipp, “The specialty services division is seeing growth and expansion across all product lines. We are taking advantage of synergies with the other Brown & Root business segments and affiliates, resulting in strong geographic and business growth.”
Brown & Root’s turnaround business has also grown exponentially since the December acquisition. “We’ve been actively engaging existing and new clients,” said Eddie Villeret, turnaround president, “letting industry leaders know the additional turnaround, cooling tower, and specialty welding capabilities we’ve added through the MEI acquisition.”
Focus on service
Brown & Root is approaching the 9,000-employee mark in more than 100 locations across North America. “We are focused on building a fully integrated industrial services company that adds value to our clients’ facilities across the board — whether they’re expanding capacity, improving the reliability of their assets, streamlining operations or in need of routine maintenance and rehabilitation,” Dupuy said. “This comprehensive, single-source business model can and already has meant significant savings and improved performance for our customers.”
For more information, visit www.Brownandroot.com or call (225) 778-7655. •
“We’re focused on building a fully integrated industrial services company that adds value to our clients’ facilities across the board — whether they’re expanding capacity, improving the reliability of their assets, streamlining operations, or in need of routine maintenance and rehabilitation.” — Andy Dupuy, President/ CEO, Brown & Root
