Business View Magazine | May 2020

58 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE MAY 2020 on his way to California for a job opportunity. He decided to stop and help for a few days, which resulted in his tenure at Watco Tanks lasting 50 years. Together, my grandfather and my dad primarily built Oil Field tanks through the 1970s. In the mid-1980s, Watco joined the STI and started building aboveground and underground fuel storage tanks. I came on the scene in 1997.” Today, Watco has about 50 employees in a single location in Floresville, just outside San Antonio, Texas. Over the years, Watco has supplied storage tanks all across the country and overseas. Some of their most notable tanks went to the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, the country of Mongolia, along with numerous airports across the country. Watson admits, “freight cost is our biggest logistics challenge.” Hence, they typically stick to Texas, Louisana, and the surrounding states. Jason Holland, Watco Tanks Sales Manager, explains, “We typically sell to our preferred distributors, which are usually members of the Petroleum Equipment Institute (PEI). They handle equipment and installation for the end- users’ fuel needs. Our team has the background and knowledge to understand the necessary quality and engineering that goes into each steel storage tank that we fabricate. Newer companies don’t have that. Our longevity in the industry and the fact that we’ve been building up customer relationships for over 50 years has established us as a preferred manufacturer in the petroleum equipment industry.” Watco Tanks has a distinctive advantage over the competition – quality. Watco Tanks is one of a handful of world-wide companies with 20 straight years of earning the STI quality award. The quality award is subject to 6 unannounced inspections a year. The inspectors look at every aspect of the building, welding, coating, and paperwork process. To pass the yearly quality award, a company cannot have a single negative mark against the product during the inspection. Watson reflects, “I remember my father telling me as a kid, ‘when you are dealing with quality,