Business View Magazine | July 2019

411 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE JULY 2019 Sunbelt Equip MARKETING, INC. RELATIONSHIPS MAKE IT WORK S unbelt Equipment Marketing, Inc. (SEMI) is an equipment and solutions provider to its customers in the oil and gas pipeline construction sector. The company was founded in 1980 by J.W. Gully, who had spent years in the pipeline construction industry and decided to start his own equipment rental company. “We’re still a family-owned operation,” says Vice President, John Fry. “The product line has been added to; new innovations have come about; but the underlying goal is to support pipeline contractors in their construction efforts. That’s our niche – oil and gas pipeline construction.” SEMI has two main locations – a corporate office in College Station, Texas, and a facility in Louisville, Mississippi. “In Mississippi, we do our manufacturing,” Fry explains. “We build trailers and other items that support pipeline construction; we do custom fabrication; depending on what the customer needs, we do modifications on our company-owned equipment in our rental fleet. Having operations in Texas and Mississippi allows us to quickly respond to pipeline construction demands in different regions.” “We go where the job is,” Fry continues. “So, if they’re working in a certain region, such as Houston, or Tulsa, or somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, or northeast, we support them wherever they’re at.” Fry adds that because SEMI is a relatively small company, with only 20-30 employees, it also relies on additional partners throughout the country that help support its operations. “We’re always looking to identify strategic partners to help us when we’re in a location that’s not close to our home office in Mississippi. So, we’ll work with our logistics partners and the clients to make