Business View Magazine | June 2019

145 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE JUNE 2019 or manufacture a certain piece on a repetitive basis. The company’s main services are pressure vessels fabrication, process piping, and structural fabrication. Three of the primary customers fit the chemical plant definition. Some others are steel mills, such as Steel Dynamics Incorporated (SDI), just 30 minutes away in Columbus, Mississippi. Ken explains, “Our goal is to establish long-term working relationships with our customers, not just do a job or two and worry about another opportunity later. We go above and beyond for quality and satisfaction, providing a service they can depend on, nights, weekends, holidays, for emergency repairs and maintenance jobs. We know if we can offer that 24/7, it gives extra value to companies, some of them we’ve been working with for 20 or 30 years. Tronox, LLC; Westlake Corporation; Steel Dynamics (SDI); Nouryon – we have great working relationships with people at all four of those facilities.” Valued employees are also key to TWS’s growth and success. Most of the staff are long-term, having been with the company anywhere from 10 to 30 years. Thompson’s takes pride in building relationships with each one and supporting them on and off the job. To meet the challenge of finding skilled labor, TWS has teamed up with the local junior college to offer internships to the technical training and pipe welding classes, and the company has actually hired workers from that. “We just have to make the commitment to find young people who want to do this for a career,” says Ken. “And we do spend time and money teaching and training to cultivate local people to stay in the area.” NexGen Crane & Rigging is celebrating one year as a subsidiary of Thompson’s Welding Services. It was a logical evolution of the company – in the last three or four years, many projects they were bidding on included crane work as part of the scope and they were subcontracting that out to companies with their own cranes. TWS saw an opportunity to move in that direction and took it. They already owned two cranes and have since purchased three larger cranes and hired specialty personnel in the industry to partner with their THOMPSON’ S WELDING SERV I CES , INC . www.gcminsurance.com OFFICES Columbus • West Point • Starkville • Aberdeen • Amory A locally owned independent insurance agency. Your insurance needs are unique and best understood by an agent who knows you and your community. BUSINESS GROUP BENEFITS BONDS