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It started out as a machine shop operation in 1946, as a few Lafourche Parish entrepreneurs sought to re-establish themselves and their community in the wake of World War II.
Today, the business has morphed into a leading builder and maintainer of military and oilfield industry vessels, with 10 shipyards in two states and 28 dry docks.
Bollinger Shipyards has become a local household word, with a reputation for being a good outfit to work for and to do business with, as well as a major player on the national maritime scene.
Family members say the foundations laid by the company’s founder, the late Donald Bollinger, are what have kept it on course, and what will continue to do so as they move toward another century of government and private industry service.
Just a few weeks ago, proof of Bollinger’s leading place in the shipbuilding industry was fortified with the announcement that it is one of three finalists bidding for a $10.5 billion contract to build the Coast Guard’s next generation of offshore patrol cutters. Eastern Shipbuilding Group of Panama City, Fla., and Bath Iron Works of Bath, Maine, are also in the running.
The contract, once awarded, will provide as many as 2,500 people to work.
Even before that choice is made, Bollinger and the other contenders will be creating 200 skilled jobs apiece, including engineering positions, as plans and proof of specifications are created for the Coast Guard Altogether, eight companies sought the contract. It is now down to the three finalists.
The bid comes on the heels of $250 million contract awarded to Bollinger in September, for construction of six fast-response cutters.
“It doesn’t just happen overnight,” said the company’s president, Chris Bollinger, in a telephone interview last week. “It’s about doing the right thing even when nobody is watching.”
Nobody was watching in 1946, when Donald Bollinger sought to establish a business that would grow slowly but would provide jobs to neighbors in Lockport and his own family.
Bollinger Machine Shop and Shipyards began in a small bayouside wooden building, near small farms, small wood and steel tugs and fishing boats. There was also a bit of general machine work being done.
With his brothers Ralph, a mechanic, and George, a welder, along with brother-in-law Pappy Boyd, his father Bud and Dick, his youngest brother, who with his degree from L.S.U., became president of Bollinger Shipyards, the dream became a reality.
“The beginning was humble and the guys worked hard. They soon earned a reputation for their efficient service and innovation in marine repair,” reads the official history of the company. “It wasn’t long after the Bollinger’s got their little business underway that the oilfield boom in South Louisiana started. The demand for larger, more specialized vessels, inland and offshore, helped their company grow by leaps and bounds.”
The business grew and did well until the oil bust of 1984.
Donlad’s son, Donald Jr. – known as “Boysie” – saw the bust coming and took a gamble, bidding on a Coast Guard patrol boat project. During the oilfield depression Bollinger built 49 U.S. Coast Guard Island Class Cutters, 110 feet each in length. That work, with the company’s commercial repair program, sustained them.
Since then Bollinger has delivered 77, 87-foot Marine Protector Class Coastal Patrol Boats for the Coast Guard.
Since the initial contract with the Coast Guard, Bollinger has continued to grow and expand its commercial and military new construction and repair facilities, the official history states, making it the largest vessel repair company in the Gulf of Mexico region.
Chris Bollinger, Boysie’s son, notes that it is repair and maintenance that is a bread-and-butter operation for the firm.
There have been challenges through the company’s growth such as an accusation by federal officials that the company did not provide proper specs for a fleet of ships under contract that led to problems.
So fat the courts have been unconvinced, although there are still some matters in the case left to be resolved.
Family members say that any truth to those allegations would be a direct violation of Bollinger’s commitment to excellence, so far as any intentional misinformation might be concerned They do acknowledge that unintentional mistakes were made and that once discovered they were corrected.
Some work done toward growth has not always continued as planned.
In some places, Chris Bollinger notes, takeovers of shipyards did not occur because the staff or management was not prepared to adopt the Bollinger culture.
The key to success, he maintains, is the ability of managers to understand and manage people, who are the greatest resource.
Part of that managing challenge, Chris Bollinger said, also shows itself in the difficulty Bollinger and other local firms have finding workers. Bollinger is among local firms partnering with state and local government to identify, attract and keep a skilled labor force. The company works closely with Nicholls State University and Fletcher Technical Community College – among others – to plan for future workforce development.
“Together, we work on managing it efficiently, to get the job done,” Chris Bollinger said, adding that ultimately, it is people who make the difference.
“We can’t do what we do without the people,” he said. “You can have tons of equipment and training, but without the people it will not work.”
