Equipment World Digital Magazine
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/565622
September 2015 | EquipmentWorld.com 76 contractor of the year | continued Pratt says. Things have gradually improved, though. This year saw some real ups and downs. The fi rst quarter was hor- rible, Corrigan says, because of the constant rain. But now that the rain has stopped, the company is back on track and has a huge backlog of work. Jobs can range from the Rio Grande Valley to Waco and Hous- ton. For 2015, Corrigan set a goal of increasing revenues by 20 percent, to be accomplished by bidding work further out in the state, look- ing at a different client base and capturing more market share in the San Antonio area. Corrigan also tried his hand at running quarries, and even though he sold that business last year, it taught him a lot about effi ciency and keeping his costs down. The quarry experience also taught him a valuable lesson. Corrigan learned not to fall in love with his yellow iron. Equipment strategy "The older equipment does not make you any money," he says. "Keeping up with the repairs ate us alive. We fi nally learned that we have to reinvest everything. We trade up or we trade out. Dustin does a good job of covering our utilization, so if we're not using something we don't stay attached to it. We get rid of it. We'll typically trade it or sell it for assets we know we can use." Most of his acquisitions today are new equipment, Corrigan says, or low-hour, well-maintained ma- chines. But almost everything the company buys is from a dealer, whether it be trucks or equipment. "We're fi rm believers in a good war- ranty," he says. The oil patch: opportunities and challenges When unconventional drilling methods started unlocking new petroleum reserves in South Texas it presented C-3 Environmental Specialties and many other contrac- tion companies a tantalizing choice – whether to take some of that site work or not. "Oilfi eld work is a great thing, but the boom builds a false sense of security for some guys," Corrigan says. "They go down there chasing the money and they get used to it. But most don't save any money. It happens about every 10 years. It's pretty easy to lose down there." The other problem is the upward pressure the oil boom put on wages. "For whatever reason, guys who work there think their base pay should be around $30 an hour and that isn't doable for us," Corrigan says. "How do you compete against that? I'm glad we didn't chase a lot of it. We had the opportunity, but we were busy enough up here at the time." What Corrigan is not going to lose out on are the good deals he's seeing on used equipment now that work in the oil fi eld work is declin- ing. "A lot of those guys didn't own equipment. They would RPO-it (rental-purchase option), and now all the equipment yards are stacking them up," Corrigan says. Social media recruiting When C-3 Environmental Special- ties is hiring it will use everything from small community newspapers to word-of-mouth to its website. But both Corrigan and Pratt are fi rm believers in the power of social me- dia combined with word of mouth when it comes to fi nding entry-level candidates. Their formula is to get all the employees and all their friends and relatives to use their social media channels to tell everybody that they are hiring. That not only expands the outreach exponentially, it gets the message out to young people who are a known quantity and more likely to be good candidates than the average stranger walking in off the street. Diversity and experience = success Corrigan says his company's key strength is its size and the ability it has to offer more services. "We are a one-stop shop. That's how we got With plenty of stubborn mesquite and live oak roots to clear, C-3 gets plenty of work out of it's elevated sprocket dozer.