Keystone without Tears
May 21, 2014
Thomassie family sees continued growth in 20-plus years of service
May 21, 2014
Change at Danos has been gradual and it has been rapid.
The family-held energy-service company based in Larose is 67 years old. It started as Danos and Curole with a 65-foot single engine wooden tugboat and a contract with Gulf Oil (now Chevron). From there Danos expanded to crew-boat servicing of offshore oil wells and remained a player on the oil-and-gas scene, both on land and on water, for decades to come.
In 2005, the company extricated itself from boating to focus entirely on its construction, fabrication and labor sectors, which had alongside the marine works divisions, blossomed with extraction from oil-and-gas plays on land and at sea to an extent they were deemed the company’s future.
Then, over the past three years, the company’s workforce jumped by approximately 70 percent. Where roughly 1,000 people were under the company’s employ in 2011, there are now more than 1,700, according to Hank Danos, the company’s president. In May 2012, the company changed its name to Danos.
Business is booming. A $30-plus million facilities expansion plan the company announced last year won’t be complete quickly enough to satisfy the needs of their clients – oil majors like Chevron, Shell, BP, Noble Energy and Williams, as well as smaller companies. So once again Danos is investigating potential locations along coastal Louisiana, this time in search of a fabrication facility that can accommodate immediate work on an interim basis.
“Our current emphasis is, at the moment, we are looking for an interim facility to supplement what we do in Larose as we continue to design a more permanent facility slated to be in New Iberia,” Danos said. “We’re looking at Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Mary and Iberia Parish, something we can get up and running maybe in the next 90-120 days that would allow us to expand fabrication services and plant construction services.”
Danos is looking for a facility adjacent to the waterfront with existing infrastructure in place, Hank Danos said.
The company previously announced it would build a new headquarters in Gray and a new fabrications plant now slotted for New Iberia. Combined, the projects will generate 426 direct jobs, according to a joint company and state estimate.
“We’re proud that one of our leading oil and gas technology companies believes in the central role that Louisiana plays in the production of deep-water oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico and beyond,” Gov. Bobby Jindal said in February. “With companies like Danos, Louisiana’s reputation as an innovative oil and gas leader will continue to grow and shape this vital industry.”
The state of Louisiana offered Danos access to Louisiana Economic Development tax credits and a performance-based grant that could total as much as $1.5 million as it was choosing where to entrench itself via the expansion.
But the Danos’ decision to double-down on Louisiana even amid charges the state’s labor pool is ill equipped to handle the energy-related prosperity came down to more than what state could offer what benefits.
“Why did we choose to stay here when our contemporaries are choosing to move to Texas? We have a great deal of admiration for Texas, but we feel like we are a Louisiana company,” Hank Danos said. “There’s a lot of big decisions that are made in Houston. We need to be in Houston like everybody needs to be in Houston because there’s a lot going on there, but we choose to have our headquarters in south Louisiana, which we think better fits our corporate culture.
“We fit in, and we can better hire, recruit and execute from south Louisiana at the moment than we can from any place else.”
Gray provides easy access to U.S. Highway 90 and thus is an expedient link to Danos’ locations in New Iberia, Lafayette and Houston and to airports for travel to offices in Pennsylvania and Africa. Danos broke ground on the $10 million Terrebonne project earlier this month.
New Iberia, where Danos expects to open a roughly $23 million, 172,000-square-foot fabrication plant by the end of next year, maintains a link to the Gulf while tapping into what company executives tout is a skilled workforce there. In New Iberia, the company will focus on building production modules and structural and process piping protection.
The existing fabrication plant in Larose will not close and will run at “the strength that the industry and the customer base would require,” Hank Danos said. “We always hope that’s full strength.” The work capacity generated by maintaining the Larose yard is necessary in order to keep up with clients, but the location is also strategic in terms of preserving proximity to Port Fourchon, the company president said.
“It appears to us that there’s a number of projects being planned for the future (in the Gulf),” he said. “The activity is robust, and it appears it will be robust for years.”
Outside the Gulf region, Danos has a hand in Africa and in Marcellus Shale activities in Pennsylvania. As global excitement builds related to untapped reservoirs in Brazil, Mexico and elsewhere, the Larose-based service company is monitoring potential opportunities, Hank Danos said.
“We like to be led by the needs of our customers,” he said. “There are some things in terms of geographic areas and projects that we have an eye on. If our customers open the door for us or if we see a need, we will continue to expand in terms of our product and service offerings and our geographic location.”
The company counts itself among the largest service providers to energy producers in the Gulf region, but it took decades to reach that level.
Allen Danos and his brother-in-law Syriaque Curole co-founded the business with that initial tugboat, which primarily worked out of Plaquemines Parish. The company moved to crew boats in the early 1950s after Gulf Oil requested that service. “I would say that really was a catalyst of changing the nature of our business in the early 1950s – when we went offshore for the first time,” said Hank Danos, Allen’s son.
Danos maintained an inland boat division, as well as labor services, until Allen died in 1970. The company’s cofounder left control of the company to Hank and his brother, who purchased ownership stake from the Curole family and began to “evolve away from the crew-boat business,” Hank recalled.
The company stopped boating activity until 1982, when it opened a lift-boat division for self-elevating jack-up barges. But in 2005 the company sold that segment in a deal that provided cash and the freedom to more fully develop its other strengths.
“We saw an opportunity, one to sell the business and two, to refocus on labor, construction and fabrication, which is something I had a great deal of interest in,” Hank Danos said. “I thought if we refocused our business, we would have the opportunity to grow the business, which we have. Our customer base grew, our geographic base grew and our employment numbers grew and the number of projects we were working on grew.”
Today, the company owns no vessels. Its primary work is manufacturing and fabrication, but the company also applies offshore-appropriate coatings to clients’ equipment and offers trained employees for contract work and production support.
Hank Danos said the family-run company – Hank’s sons Eric and Paul are executive vice presidents – has no plans to go public.
“It’s not anything that we have seriously considered now or in the past,” Danos said. “We like (to be) family run, the culture we can create, the way we can deliver services and connect to our customers and our employees. It seems like our employees and our customers like the culture that we’ve created, so we’re going to try to maintain it.”
Hank Danos’ emphasis on the company culture is exemplified by government and industrial recognition of the company’s commitment to safety.
Last month, the company became the first to receive the National Ocean Industries Association’s Safety in Seas Culture of Safety Award, as granted by a panel of judges representing the U.S. Coast Guard, Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, National Academy of Sciences Transportation Review Board and an independent industry safety consultant. It has been lauded for safety practices in the past, also receiving awards from the U.S. Department of Interior, Chevron and ExxonMobil.
“There are five values that we kind of hold up as very instrumental in who we are and how we operate,” Danos said, listing safety, service, improvement, integrity and respect. “Whenever we make a business decision, we try to analyze what we’re doing through the lenses of those five values. … All of those ingredients come together and create a culture that seems to be succeeding at the moment.”
Danos executives broke ground on the company’s new corporate headquarters May 8, near the corner of La. Highway 24 and U.S. Highway 90. The 64,000-square-foot facility will provide office and meeting space for up to 290 employees. The facility is expected to be complete by spring 2015. Pictured from left are MAPP Construction Project Manager Joey Noto, Gensler Principal Greg LaCour, Danos Executive Vice Presidents Paul and Eric Danos, President and CEO Hank Danos, Terrebonne Parish President Michel Claudet, Danos Construction and Fabrication Division Manager Mark Danos and Danos Senior Account Manager Brady Hebert.
