blackeagle

BLACKEAGLE ENERGY SERVICES ERICKSON: “We construct and maintain energy infrastructure – primarily pipelines for natural gas and refined products, and the associated pumping and compression facilities that go with those pipelines. We also have a fabrication facility that sup- ports these activities; it meets manufactur- ing code standards for building high-pres- sure vessels and pipeline accessories, like launchers and receivers for our customers in the industry. “We work in three market segments. The first is midstream oil and gas. That’s the gathering and transportation of oil and gas from operators; the second is refined prod- ucts transmission. The refineries across the country typically transport product in pipe- lines to terminals for distribution. We build and maintain those pipelines and termi- nals. The third area is something that we’ve expanded quite a bit lately – natural gas utilities; that’s the transmission and distri- bution of natural gas to end customers. “We work across 17 states; we have offic- es in Nebraska, Texas, and Ohio, in addition to our Berthoud, Colorado headquarters. We are project-based, so our employee count can expand pretty rapidly, depending on what’s going on at the time.” BVM: How do you differentiate your com- pany from the competition? ERICKSON: “In a word, we characterize our strategy to differentiate ourselves as ‘professionalism.’ It starts with our sophis- ticated performance management system. Every crew on every job gets a scorecard every week. We also share scorecards with our major customers on our projects, so they, on a weekly basis, have some kind of accounting of where we are in three areas: safety, efficiency, and quality. We have a pretty sophisticated data management system. It records real-time data on safety, efficiency, and quality; we analyze and interpret the data, and then report it back to the crews. So, everybody knows where they stand on their projects all the time. We find that, by keeping score in this way, and providing this kind of feedback, our crews perform much better and more safely than other companies of our size. “Also, to make a system like this work, we set very specific standards in all these areas, and then we measure ourselves against those standards and provide weekly feedback on how everybody’s doing. And we found that crews dramatically improved their performance since we began the scorecard system, about two years ago. The results speak for themselves. We’ve ad- vanced in all three areas that we measure since we began doing this. It’s good for our bottom line, as well as our customers’ management of these jobs.” BVM: Anything new and newsworthy on Blackeagle’s current agenda? ERICKSON: “One of the areas of expertise that we’re focusing on is pipeline integrity management. Recent legislation increased the focus on the safety and integrity of the nation’s pipelines, and, in response to our customers’ needs, we’ve developed deep expertise around this. It includes things like supporting tool runs for in-line inspection and repair. Companies, especially utilities and, more so, the midstream refined products, must periodically inspect their pipelines from the inside with something called ‘smart pigs.’ A pig is a device that’s pushed down the pipeline that can read the pipeline’s integri- ty and its status in a fairly sophisticated way. It From it’s beginning in 1956, Crea Excavating, Inc. has been a wall-recognized Excavating Contractor in the Western Pennsylvania area. Established by Bob Crea, the family business has grown and is now owned and operated by his son, Ted Crea. Our services include site preparation (including excavating, grading, foundations, trenching, utility lines and driveways) and trucking services for new and existing residential and commercial development. We are proud of our work and the reputation we have earned over the years. Crea Excavating, Inc. EXCAVATING n GRADING n TRUCKING creaex@zoominternet.net Ted Crea, owner Cell: 724-502-6120 Ofc: 724-935-2959 Fax: 724-935-2918 1315 Pleasant Hills Road Wexford, PA 15090 PA 006488