Mansfield Excavating Machinery

Source: Energy Digital

Date :5/8/2008 6:07:05 AM

President Norm Stinson explains how Mansfield Excavating Machinery has managed to achieve rapid growth since its formation in 2004

Written by Philip Orchard and Produced by Rich Gentile

The natural gas industry is moving at unprecedented speed, and Mansfield Excavating Machinery is among its fastest growing movers.

“If you talk to any of the large pipeline companies, they will tell you that they can’t remember when there was this much work in progress, or being bid,” president Norm Stinson says. “Many are bidding work out as far as 2011. With our country’s need to become more energy self-sufficient, and all of the new natural gas plays coming on line, the need for more and larger pipelines will increase.”

Lying beneath the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex and across 17 counties in North Texas is the Barnett Shale formation, one of the most natural gas-rich areas in America, and high gas prices have created a mad dash to extract it. More than 6,000 wells run by more than 175 operators are pulling gas out of the shale.

Just 25 miles from Fort Worth, in the “heart” of the Barnett Shale, Alvarado-based MEM is providing the trenching equipment necessary for gas companies to meet the growing demand.

Established in 2004 and backed by an intense commitment to customer satisfaction and a knowledgeable employee-base, MEM is providing equipment solutions to natural gas and general construction companies in Texas, the Southwest and beyond. MEM’s knowledge base is crucial to it’s success. Seven (7) of it’s key employees have a combined 125 years in the trenching industry.

“The industry is growing as fast as it possibly can,” Stinson says. “The lack of qualified operators, and in some instances, shortage of equipment, is the only holdup. The Barnett Shale gas play in Texas has been huge for us. The new finds in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and a large one in Appalachia, will need new pipelines for years to come.”

Equipment solutions

To meet these skyrocketing demands, MEM maintains a full and growing fleet of equipment built by Trencor, the Astec Underground division specializing in chain and wheel trenchers, rocksaws and specialized machines.

MEM owns 27 trenchers, ranging from 260 to 600 in horsepower, including the eight new 350-horsepower trenchers and the six 440 H.P. trenchers the company bought in the past twelve months alone. These include almost instant access from our supplier to behemoth machines like the T1860 HDE, the chain trencher which can provide cuts up to 96 inches wide and 20 feet deep, and the RoadMiner, boasting clean, even single-pass cuts that eliminate blasting, MEM has in stock four 1360 Bucket machines capable of cutting a maximum of 9 ft. deep and 66 inches wide. Then there’s the T1660 HDE Magnum chain trencher, which looks like something out of a Transformers cartoon but features an 800 horsepower engine. And not to be left out is the 525 H.P. Rocksaw, which features menacingly on MEM’s Internet homepage and boasts 60 inch deep cuts.

“We have one of the newest and largest rental fleet of trenchers in the country,” Stinson says.

Most of MEM’s business stems from natural gas pipelines and general construction, but the company is also heavily involved in an expansion into the wind-power sector. Beyond Texas, the company has provided equipment to new pipelines in New Mexico, Arizona, Louisiana, Kansas, Arkansas, and Oklahoma, Colorado, Utah, Nebraska, Missouri, California, and Canada.

In all industries, the company offers both sales and leasing opportunities, and provides an unwavering commitment to complete service, with trucks ready for on-demand, on-site support.

“Our commitment to the customer is to provide quality equipment, on time, with the support system to keep it up and running,” Stinson says. “Our rapid growth has been a challenge. Hiring and training qualified technicians, doubling our facility size in the last three years, and going from four machines to twenty seven since 2005 has translated into some very long hours for everyone involved.”

Effective employees

It’s MEM’s employee-base, that perhaps makes the company most unique. Several companies are benefiting and growing from the energy explosion, and plenty of companies are providing crucial infrastructure to the industry.

But the key to MEM’s success is the way it has been able maintain its focus on top-notch service and customer support despite the challenges posed by the industry’s rapid growth. And the key to transitioning effectively, Stinson says, stems from MEM’s unmatched force of employees.“Once again, it is our employee’s dedication to their work, and them being the most knowledgeable in the industry,” Stinson says.

This commitment starts from the beginning, at the hiring stage, and continues through training, where each of the company’s 50 employees work together based on differing levels of experience and expertise in order to create a consistent, company-wide culture of capability.

“We have a rigorous screening process, and once a person makes it through the initial interviews, we spend a lot of time on training,” Stinson says. “New hires are sent out on jobs to get ‘hands on’ experience. It helps them to understand what goes on in the field and creates a atmosphere of mutual understanding of the problems that are faced, both on the operations and maintenance, as well as the management side of the business.”

MEM is a non-union company, and bases compensation on attitude and performance rather than length of employment. In response, the company works hard to foster a family atmosphere, where each employee feels integral to the company’s overall success. Everything, Stinson said, is based on team effort and spirit.

Future challenges; future success

The biggest future challenge facing MEM, Stinson says, is continuing to incubate a strong and expanding employee-base. Further growth seems inevitable, especially as the company looks beyond natural gas toward wind energy and other new construction sectors, so it becomes a matter of maintaining a quality employee-base to meet that growth and transition.

“It’s qualified personnel,” Stinson says. “A large percentage of the workforce in this industry are reaching retirement age, so you are forced to do a lot of training. We are very well capitalized, so keeping the newest and best equipment in the fleet will not be a problem.”

But with an impressive array of cutting-edge equipment, an insatiable desire for customer satisfaction and a devotion to its employees, MEM expects to continue on as a leading solutions provider for the natural gas industry.

“Evidently, what we do and the way we do it works,” Stinson says. “Our sales have doubled every year for the past four years. Obviously, those gains can’t continue forever, but there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight. As long as everyone remembers that the customer comes first, then we’ll continue to be successful.”