dec-2017

114 115 (DOT). From a business model standpoint, anything that is regulated typicallymeans there’s going to be ongoing business for a long time.” “When he began to do further research on the niche service and the market, he saw that there was a need and it needed to be met immediately,”Peter continues.“Jus- tin found a couple of individuals who had 20-plus years of experience in the service line that we offered at the time, and hired them to be a part of his grand idea.He took out a small loan, bought a truck, and built out what we call a test trailer, or a mobile testing unit, and formed his company.His main marketing tactic was to drive through the Eagle Ford Shale (the Eagle Ford Group is a sedimentary rock formation deposited during the Cenomanian and Turonian ages of the Late Cretaceous Period over much of the modern-day state of Texas), until peo- ple asked him to hydrotest some of their pipelines and fittings. “In 2012,we kept the same model; we were primarily concentrated in the Eagle Ford.At that time, they were aggressively building out the infrastructure there,which meant there was more work than we could even remotely dream of handling.Thus,we continued to build out the customer base, strictly by word of mouth, and continued to grow. In 2013,when I joined the team,we JP SERVICES AT A GLANCE JP SERVICES WHAT: Provider of pressure testing and pipeline mainte- nance services for the oil and gas industry WHERE: The Woodlands, Texas WEBSITE: www.jpservices.com started looking at various strategic expansion opportunities. Short- ly thereafter,we came across the chance to start offering the same services we provide in south Texas to the greater Houston area. So, we started a Houston-based division. During 2012 through 2014, we experienced exponential growth when we merged with an equity group.At the same time,when oil and gas commodity prices started to fall,we repositioned and restructured from a customer base of general contractors and pipeline builders to focus on the actual asset owners and operators, themselves. “Pipelines are required to be recertified for certain periods– some lines every five years, some, every seven.That sector of the market is known as the ‘integrity division’within these operators. So,we started honing in on working with the integrity divisions of the larger asset owners to attain consistent work; not relying so much on new construction, but relying on the regulations that the government has placed on companies to keep their pipelines in compliance.