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PETROLEUM DIRECTORY: PDC and Harris Group prove their commitment to Alaska and each other Tying the knot: Two leading cold-regions engineering firms take their relationship to the next level Mara Severin PNA Contributing Writer
After what some might call a long engagement, the cold-regions engineering firms PDC and Seattle-based Harris Group have decided to become more than just friends. Five years of informal joint Alaska project work has led to a formal alliance called PDC Harris Group. The limited liability corporation is focused on providing engineering and design services to Alaska clients in the oil and gas, power generation and Department of Defense sectors. Mike Moora, general manager of the alliance, has been involved in the relationship from the beginning. “It was through our continuing relationship that I became acquainted with the management of PDC and their strengths,” he says. “Together we came up with the concept for focusing on Alaska’s energy industry and of complementing each other’s strengths.”
A powerhouse of resources behind a deceptively small facade No young love here. With each company boasting more than 30 years of experience, the companies completely cover the full spectrum of engineering disciplines, says Moora. He explains the two companies’ different and complementary areas of expertise. Alaska-based PDC is an 80 person employee-owned engineering services company with two offices in the state. Its strengths are in infrastructure and facility design. “Typical facilities might be temporary camps or semi-permanent living quarters for North Slope projects, dormitories, or living facilities on military sites,” says Moora. “They’re also very strong on civil-structural design in cold regions and, of course all of the various systems that are required to support such facilities. Power generation, for example, and water treating, as well as wastewater treating are the sorts of small modular systems included in these facilities,” he explains.
Alternatively, Harris Group, with more than 400 employees in 10 offices around the world, specializes more in heavy industrial projects — oil, gas and power plants, says Moora. Energy-related projects comprise a significant portion of the Harris Group’s work, but their areas of expertise include not only oil, gas and power generation, but also manufacturing, forest products, biotechnology, process development, financial consulting and air permitting.
Harris Group’s energy business unit is the primary sponsor of the LLC and that’s where Mike Moora, the alliance’s helmsman, comes from. His experience in energy-related engineering-design is a chief qualifier but he is quick to point to his other, less technical skills. “My role during the initial growth period,” he says, “is to develop business, provide client service, and manage projects. Later,” he says, “as the backlog of projects will support it, my role will shift to predominately sales and service.”
On paper, PDC Harris is a one-person operation {the corporation is, strictly speaking, owned by PDC and Harris Group, and managed by an executive committee}but the entity is really just an avenue through which to channel the many services and capabilities of both companies, according to Moora. Having the resources of two diverse entities makes them uniquely positioned to behave like a much larger company he says. “All of these resources are available to us on a temporary or long-term basis,” he says. “So we can spool up quickly and pare down quickly — probably more so than our competitors.”
Cutting the time between concept and revenue The company’s diversity and agility allows it to focus on “fast-track” projects, says Moora. “A lot of the projects we undertake have the same common ground — the need for cold region engineering on a very compressed schedule.”
In an industry where time is money, and where the Alaskan environment stingily offers very small windows of opportunity for productive work on the North Slope, speed is of the essence. “It’s just in the interest of the client,” says Moora, “to shorten the timeframe between concept and actually having something in the ground producing, processing and, most important, producing revenue.” PDC Harris, he says, is adept at greasing the wheels of an energy-based project. Fast and efficient project designs help you to take advantage of market opportunities, Moora points out. He puts it more strongly still, “Our company philosophy is: Whatever It Takes,” he says. “We’re a service company and we’ll do whatever it takes to successfully complete a project and to bring it in under tight scheduling and budget constraints.”
No job too small Budget constraints for the industry are, somewhat contrary to business logic, good news for PDC Harris. “We tackle smaller fast-track projects,” explains Moora. “That’s our bread and butter. We do the smaller projects that some of our competition isn’t interested in doing.” A small project to Moora means those up to $10 million in total project value. The company routinely executes projects with tight schedules in this budget range he says, and in this way, sets itself apart from the competition. “We are quicker and more cost-efficient than our larger, more cumbersome cold regions competitors.”
Mitigating the ‘nerd factor’ To the client, technical expertise is only half the battle. Before a project can be executed it must be developed, negotiated, planned and discussed. Moora is well aware of the stigma attached to his industry — that engineers, like all scientists, are more comfortable with machinery than with people. The “nerd factor,” is how Moora puts it, with a smile. But he’s quick to dispel this reputation as it relates to PDC Harris Group. Moora himself has a lot of experience in the non-technical aspects of business operation including marketing and sales, accounting and human resources, and recognizes that a service company must pay close attention to these aspects as well as to the engineering design aspects of the industry. “The people that we have in senior project manager positions are seasoned in customer liaison and customer service,” he says. “In order to rise to those positions they have to demonstrate more than just technical knowledge. They’re driven by success.”
In addition to a culture of strong customer service, the company is proud of its strong Alaska culture. “Between the two companies,” says Moora, “we have a large number of people who have a heritage of doing projects in Alaska and on the North Slope.” Many of these employees have worked for other companies — either for producers or large contractors. “They are seasoned veterans who have been around long enough to know what it takes to get something into the ground and functioning.” Some of their engineers and designers are once again working with Alaskan energy producers.
“We have a lot of long-term Alaskans,” says Moora. “They’re in it for the long haul. They’re not here on assignment.” The implications of this, points out Moora, are many and significant. After all, he says, as Alaskans they are eager to support not only the state’s energy industry in the short-term, but also the state’s future and its precious environment.
Sharing in Alaska’s bright future PDC Harris Group, says Moora, is also here for the duration. While the company’s immediate goals are focused on developing existing facilities and working on step-outs on the North Slope and the facilities to support that growth, Moora is not afraid to look further into the future.
“We’re here for the long haul, not just the next boom.” He feels confident about his company’s success, but he also feels confident about the future of the state. ”We have very lofty goals,” he says, “but we have faith in our vision because of Alaska’s bright future.”
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