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Providing coverage of Alaska and northern Canada's oil and gas industry
April 2007

Vol. 12, No. 14 Week of April 08, 2007

PETROLEUM DIRECTORY: Trinity Inspection Services, LLC, to establish Anchorage, Alaska, office

With a dedicated team of NACE and AWS-CWI inspectors, Trinity offers quality visual inspection services that provide value long after projects are completed

Q. When was the company founded, who founded it, and what was its original name?

A. Trinity was founded in 1999 as Trinity Consulting & Inspection Services by Joe Gibbs and two other partners. In 2004, I purchased the controlling interest and shortened the name.?

Q. Where is Trinity Inspections located?

A. Our corporate office is located in Covington, Louisiana to serve our Gulf Coast clients. We also have a satellite office in Fort Smith, Arkansas serving our mid-west clients and plan to open an office in Anchorage, Alaska as soon as our work there is scheduled.

Q. Who heads up your company?

A. I am majority stockholder and CEO. My background is in accounting and business management, as well as being a National Association of Corrosion Engineers level I trained coatings inspector. This background prepared me for the day-to-day challenges of running Trinity Inspections.

Joe Gibbs is the business and personnel manager. His background experience and current certifications with the American Welding Society, as a Certified Welding Inspector, and NACE Level III inspector, make him adept in visual inspection for all our clients’ needs.

Q. What is the company’s primary business sector? What services does the company offer?

A. Our primary business sector is the oil and gas industry. Most of our work is during the construction and maintenance stages of pipelines, treatment facilities, tank farms and offshore platforms. We have also inspected water lines for municipal utility agencies.

We offer third party visual inspection of welding and coatings, project management, logistics, safety inspection, monitoring, training and team building and product traceability.

Q. Who are the company’s main clients?

A. Trinity has Master Service Agreements with several major oil and gas companies, most of which are doing business in Alaska and the gulf coast. We also provide expert witness services for several attorneys and a major paint company.

Q. How many employees does your company have?

A. Trinity prides itself on handpicking the inspection staff to meet our clients’ needs. Whether it is one inspector, or a full team, we have the resources to provide a quality, trained staff for any given project. We generally have?up to?200 inspectors in our database to choose from.

Q. Is your company expanding any of its operations and/or locations?

A. We are looking forward to getting back to Alaska. We have ties in Fairbanks, as Joe grew up and graduated from Lathrop High School in Fairbanks. We are now pursuing work in Alaska, through our contacts in Anchorage and plan to open an office this year.

Q. Is the company changing any of its services? If yes, please describe what and where.

A. We are upgrading our traceability program, Pipe Life ©.?The program will simplify our reporting procedure, while adding many new statistical features for client engineers. Basically it’s customized to meet the hectic demands of each engineer involved on the project at the touch of a button. The data will be available only to secure users through a website.

Q. What is your company’s main strength?

A. Our main strength is our employees. With our multi-skilled inspection teams and their knowledge, skills, and experience in the oil and gas field, Trinity has stayed very competitive over the past eight years.

Q. What new markets, clients and/or projects did your company attract in the last year?

A. After completing the BP Mardi Gras, Endymion, Thunderhorse, Cannonball and Noel projects, we took an unexpected?Katrina remodeling break.?Now we are back on track, and working on a large company acquisition as well as a possible alliance with one of Anchorage’s up and coming star companies.

Q. Has the company invested in any new technology in the last two years?

A. We have purchased a new server to store all our clients’ traceability data and warehouse it throughout the project – longer if necessary. We recently converted our other server into a secure Web server. It is online via a dedicated T1 line, with a bulletproof security system. Each server has a daily, weekly, and monthly backup system in place. This has been tried and tested with huge success! I also have Microsoft certifications MCP, MCSE and MCDBA.

Q. What is the most challenging job the company has undertaken?

A. So far our most challenging job was providing the inspection staff to monitor welding and coating of BP’s Mardi Gras 350-mile pipeline project in the Gulf of Mexico, along with the traceability of each phase of the coating and welding process. The records management was massive. Nevertheless, with the help of the entire site team, it was a huge success. Many lessons were learned and we expect the next job will be much less labor intensive – hence the new version of our traceability records program.

Q. What are the biggest obstacles to completing work the company undertakes?

A. Our biggest obstacles for completing work is that we are dictated by the schedules of others, i.e., coating contractors, welding contractors, lay barges, and Mother Nature. It is hard sometimes to set a completion date on most projects. We also must overcome many different personnel issues during these unpredictable periods. Fortunately, we love a challenge.

Q. What do you see as your company’s biggest challenge in the next five years?

A. Like many small companies, we strive to maintain a multi-skilled staff at competitive rates, along with a benefits package that will keep our employees and their families happy (insurance, 401K, profit sharing, safety bonuses, etc.). This is a big challenge, and one we strive very hard to accomplish. Both our clients and our employees are counting on us to do this successfully.

I should mention that Trinity lost a significant number of inspection staffers to other projects, areas of the country, and even to career changes during Hurricane Katrina. Getting back up to speed was a challenge.

Q. A humorous story from your company’s years in the business in Alaska?

A. Maybe a story in the making. As a young child growing up in Fairbanks, Joe licked the frost off a swing set pole… yep, you guessed it, tongue stuck to pole. Hot coffee was used to free the young Joe. We think he left behind some skin, and repelled his desire for coffee. However, some men never learn form their boyhood mistakes, as Joe says he’s looking forward to getting back to Alaska, and can’t wait to lick the frost off the Alaska Pipeline. As for me, I’ll just stick to throwing snowballs.

Q. Does your company have an anniversary or other landmark event coming up?

A. Trinity will have its eight-year anniversary in April 2007. In December 2006 Joe, our business manager, will have completed 17 years as an NACE Certified level III + coatings inspector and an AWS-CWI for 14 years.

February 2007 marked my third year as a Woman Owned Business (in a man’s world!) and I greatly appreciate the support many people have given me. Joe and I, best friends and business partners, have wonderful clients, employees, and friends that make every day a landmark event.

Q. Average length of time an employee works for the company? Are you hiring?

A. People in the inspection field tend to work as nomads, project to project. Project length is the hardest to predict. We work our inspectors until they complete the project, for three months to five years, and move them to the next project if timing is right. If not, inspectors will work elsewhere until we have another project.

We are always accepting resumes; we log onto our database and pull up applications when specific skills are required by the job. Email resumes to [email protected].

Q. Safety Record?

A. Our safety record is outstanding. Accident free since 1999. With over one million man-hours recorded, we have had no workers comp insurance claims, no lost time, and no recordable accidents. Safety is number one. We believe it so much that we put our bonus money here!

Q. Does Trinity maintain a website?

A. Yes, we encourage anyone interested in our services and capabilities to visit us at www.trinityinspect.com, or call us at 888.973.2121.






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