Business View Magazine | June 2019

141 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE JUNE 2019 THOMPSON’S Welding Services, Inc. NOTICE THE DIFFERENCE F ounded in 1972, Thompson’s Welding Services Inc. (TWS) is an industrial fabrication company with skilled, multi- craft personnel who work to meet all the technical, scheduling, safety, procurement, and manpower requirements of a project. Experienced and innovative supervisors use proven project management skills to successfully complete the most demanding projects to complete satisfaction. Thompson’s offers a complete shop fabrication service, field installation of boilers, pressure vessels, tanks, piping systems, structural steel, and turnkey solutions. Family-owned and customer- focused, Thompson’s Welding Services does it all. Ken Thompson, President of Thompson’s Welding Services, reflects on the history of this ambitious family firm: “My Dad, Bill Thompson, started the business here in Hamilton, Mississippi in 1972, as Bill’s Welding Service. Prior to that he’d been working construction. He was a pipe welder, traveling out of town quite a bit, and he worked locally at a chemical plant for a few years in the 1960s. In 1972 he built a small shop and decided to go into business for himself; mostly, working for farmers - cotton farming was big in the area. Around 1974, oil production was growing in this area, and he started doing rig repair work for the drilling companies. This led to changing the name of the business to Thompson’s Oil Field Service in the late ‘70s.” During the summers of Ken Thompson’s high school years (1979 to 1981), he was heavily involved in the company’s oil field service, mainly welding for natural gas compressors, short pipelines, and a lot of rig repair. The oil