With its industry-leading safety record, superior execution capabilities and highly skilled personnel, Specialty Welding and Turnarounds (SWAT) remains the elite provider of specialized turnaround services.
SWAT offers a wide range of services including specialty welding, general mechanical, alky and catalyst services. With the recent acquisition of Midwest Cooling Tower Services, SWAT has brought its service offerings to another level.
Headquartered in Krotz Springs, Louisiana, and with operations across the U.S., Midwest Cooling Tower Services is a leading provider of mission-critical cooling tower solutions, including inspection, maintenance and repair, specialty distribution, and rentals.
“Midwest has been a leading provider of cooling tower services for decades with a strong reputation of excellent inspection and maintenance execution,” said Marcus Deal, CEO of SWAT. “Along with its inventory of critical components and cooling towers rental fleet, the company is well-differentiated as a key player in the industry. With this acquisition, we now provide high-quality cooling tower services as a core part of our offerings. We have extended SWAT’s technical capabilities into this attractive market by supporting Midwest’s exceptional management and operations team.”
Midwest was founded in 1984 by Daniel Wiltz Sr. and today, the business is operated by his two sons, Daniel Wiltz Jr. and Paul Wiltz.
“SWAT strongly aligns with our values, including our shared focus on safety, customer service and employee engagement,” said Paul Wiltz, vice president of Midwest Cooling Tower Services. “Midwest was started by my father more than 37 years ago, so it was important for my brother and I to find a partner who was focused on our future and also appreciates our history. We have a lot of pride in what Midwest does and what it has grown into.”
Danny Wiltz and Paul Wiltz continue to lead the business under the SWAT platform.
“Midwest is such a well-run, well-managed company that does high-quality work,” Deal said. “We knew SWAT’s customers would benefit from this acquisition, but we also knew it would help with Midwest’s strategic growth plan. This acquisition is a great fit for everyone involved.”
Last year, SWAT acquired Hydroprocessing Associates LLC (HPA) and began offering catalyst handling services for refineries, petrochemical facilities, ammonia facilities and biofuel/renewable fuel complexes. Since then, SWAT’s catalyst business has taken off.
“From specialized vessel and catalyst services to mechanical and cleaning support, SWAT offers industry-leading expertise in catalyst change-outs,” Deal said. “With every catalyst job we perform, we’re exceeding the expectations of customers with our catalyst processes. Our catalyst group is generating even more opportunities for SWAT.”
According to Jimmy Quick, vice president of SWAT, the company is also continuing to expand its footprint when it comes to its catalyst handling services.
“No job is too big or too small,” Quick said. “We have experienced catalyst technicians and proven processes and procedures.”
The elite never compromise
SWAT continues to enforce a referral-based hiring policy, ensuring only the industry’s most skilled and hardworking personnel join the company’s ranks.
“This is how we’ve consistently delivered superior quality and ensured safety on every turnaround,” said Troy Rembert, COO of SWAT. “Our core mission has always been to provide the highest standards of safety, quality and production to our customers, and this starts with our people in the field.”
According to Rembert, SWAT evaluates its people on five criteria: safety, quality, productivity, attitude and attendance.
“The best employees who come onboard are usually the ones referred to us by outstanding, existing SWAT employees,” Rembert explained. “These existing employees put their names on the line with our referral system. We hold the person who makes the referral accountable, so our employees know that when they make a referral, they have to be well-qualified candidates.”
SWAT has also developed a highly structured personnel system that allows the company to mobilize quickly and put employees on-site almost immediately.
“With our personnel system, we can quickly locate employees who’ve had previous history working in a specific facility,” Rembert said. “Those employees are able to get into the facility quickly and get to work. SWAT can also send mass text notifications to its employees about an urgent project.”
Rembert emphasized that the reason SWAT has been able to grow as a company is because it continues to hire high-quality people.
“By bringing in SWAT to perform your welding, mechanical, alky, catalyst or cooling tower services, you’re bringing in the best.” — Marcus Deal, CEO of SWAT
“From 2016 to 2022, we went from 1.3 million man-hours to over 3 million man-hours,” Rembert said. “In the first quarter of 2022, we exceeded 1 million man-hours. SWAT will continue to grow, and we will continue to keep our high standard of hiring the best by referral only.”
“SWAT has the most talented, experienced craft personnel working in industry today — all dedicated to delivering on SWAT’s commitment to its customers,” Deal said. “It all starts with the expectation that when you are employed by SWAT, you have been hand-picked and selected to work for the most elite, best-of-the-best contractor in the country. Our standards are very high.”
Using technology to build a best-in-class safety system
SWAT goes beyond everyday compliance protocols to adopt a mindset of continual safety improvement on each and every project. The company dedicates extensive training, rigorous key performance benchmarking, and the best safety equipment and technology money can buy to keep everyone on its team safe. SWAT makes safety the most important part of every task it performs.
Using a top-down safety approach, SWAT’s leaders ensure their teams are doing absolutely everything to stay safe. This approach worked in 2021, when SWAT worked more than 3 million man-hours with a TRIR of 0.13.
“SWAT’s managers and supervisors in the field use a specific app to enter safety information,” said Clint Case, director of HS&E for SWAT. “As soon as they enter this information, automatic reporting is displayed and all of SWAT’s management who are on jobsites can see it. With our app, we can track and trend any issues, deficiencies or even ‘good catches’ in the field. This is a real-time platform where SWAT gathers and shares safety information. Since we’ve started using this safety technology, we’ve had over 25,000 audits with KPIs logged in the system. It’s just not possible to work with that information on paper, so this program has helped us tremendously on that front.”
According to Case, SWAT’s recruiting platform has also been extremely beneficial for the company. This platform houses the information of each SWAT employee, and SWAT’s hiring department can easily determine that all required paperwork and training is completed. If any additional training is required, that can be scheduled through SWAT’s recruiting platform.
“This platform also allows us to assign SWAT-related training that employees can complete on their smartphones,” Case said. “This feature allows us to implement written portions of training very quickly. At any given time, SWAT has more than 1,600 employees working in the field, and these employees have to keep up with 20-50 training credentials. That’s a lot of training to track, so it’s important SWAT keeps up with the development of our employees. But the main focus of SWAT’s safety app is to make sure we’re putting the right people on jobsites. We only want to send the ‘best of the best’ to our clients in terms of our personnel.”
According to Case, SWAT is continuously implementing more digital and innovative ways to disperse important information from jobsite to jobsite.
“These programs are built to make us more efficient, but what ultimately makes SWAT safe is our employees and our safety culture,” Case said. “With safety, SWAT ensures everyone is on the same page, and everyone is looking out for each other.”
“We are committed not just to staying safe on the job, but also to helping enhance safety performance for the entire facility,” Quick said. “Our goal is to raise the bar on each job we perform.”
Year after year, SWAT has been awarded for its safety excellence by the Golden Triangle Business Roundtable, Industrial Safety Training Council, the Health and Safety Council, and the Safety Council of Southwest Louisiana.
“Every time SWAT receives a safety award, we make sure our employees are given the credit,” Deal said. “This is a close-knit group that truly cares about executing the work safely.”
The Greater Baton Rouge Industry Alliance (GBRIA) recently awarded SWAT first place in the General Construction and Maintenance — Division II category and the Hal G. Ginn Award for Best Safety Performance. According to GBRIA, the winner of the Hal G. Ginn Award is the company that “shines the brightest” when it comes to safety excellence. Diversifying to meet the industry’s needs
SWAT has taken its turnaround services to other types of facilities, assisting grassroots, bio-energy companies construct their waste-to-fuels projects.
“The industry is constantly evolving, and SWAT has been evolving with it,” Quick said. “We’re getting called in to help complete construction of biofuels facilities and have now worked on some of the largest in the U.S.”
SWAT has also been assisting refiners with converting their facilities into renewable fuels manufacturing complexes. At one West Coast refinery that’s undergoing its renewable fuel conversion, SWAT performed all the fabrication and major construction work.
“SWAT also performed all overall project management, planning, piping, structural steel and mechanical work on-site,” said Spencer Moak, vice president of West Coast operations for SWAT. “Right now, we’re working in five different renewable fuel facilities.”
“SWAT continues to grow on the West Coast, working in more and more facilities,” Deal said. “We’re proud of this diversification and being able to adapt to the needs of industry.”
When it comes to using innovations to gain efficiencies, SWAT has also developed its own “playbook,” a comprehensive guide to the company’s processes. The SWAT playbook covers how the company runs its turnarounds, from cradle to grave.
“The SWAT playbook is another item SWAT is using to be innovative,” Quick said. “In this day and age, data is key, and, more importantly, having good data is key. We examine all ends of our business to find ways to be more productive and efficient.”
According to Quick, SWAT understands what needs to happen to complete a project on time, as well as what pitfalls to avoid.
“We are honest, trustworthy and transparent with our customers, and I believe they appreciate that,” Quick said. “When we look our customers in the eye and make commitments to them, it means something to us at SWAT. We stand behind what we tell them we can achieve, and we go above and beyond for that commitment. We also do everything we can to be good stewards for our customers in regard to costs. We treat every customer’s jobsite as if it were our own facility.”
“It’s all about being the best at what you do,” Deal said. “SWAT will continue to grow, but we will also continue to provide the same level of excellent services to our customers. We have a very strong reputation in this industry, and we want to continue to maintain that reputation of excellence. At the end of the day, by bringing in SWAT to perform your welding, mechanical, alky, catalyst or cooling tower services, you’re bringing in the best.”
For more information, visit www.swatservice.com or call (225) 644-1200.