The Gas Compression Podcast

On this episode of The Gas Compression Podcast, host Michael Haning welcomes Shawn Whitmore, Operation Manager at Williams out of Wyoming.

Right away, Shawn delves into Williams' newest acquisition of 1.2 million acres in South Central Wyoming. Purchased from BP and Southland, Williams will use the land for exploration and production (E&P).

Before his 16 years at Williams, Shawn wanted more from life when he was serving in law enforcement. So he jumped on a hiring opportunity at Williams when they were expanding one of their power plants in Wyoming.

Early on at Williams, Shawn realized that nobody but himself would hold him back from what he wanted to do. He jumped on new positions, moving up the ranks where he could.

He'd assumed the bachelor's degrees of other candidates would outweigh his qualifications. One hiring manager alluded to his diversity of experience throughout the company. He had worked in various locations, with various employees, and in varying roles, which put him ahead of candidates who had a degree but less experience.

This relentless pursuit of chasing the next best opportunity has carried the pace of Shawn's career.

We recondition and repair gas compressor cylinders and all their component parts as well as rotary screw compressors. If you are looking for a top-notch partner for your natural gas compression cylinder repair, then give us a call at 806-274-2214, or visit us online at Disco-Inc.com.

On this episode of The Gas Compression Podcast, host Michael Haning welcomes Dakotah Klein, Regional Sales & Operations Manager at Roto-Versal Compression Services. Roto-Versal operates out of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and other smaller facilities spread throughout the USA. The backbone of the company's operation, though, is in the Permian Basin.

Dakotah manages the company's mechanical servers and works in sales. His experience in operations, plus 12 years on the drilling side, allows him to communicate value with his customers.

Dakotah talks about the differences between working in the oil and gas industries. Namely, compression provides a lot more stability. He says compression isn't for the lazy folk who want intermittent time off. It's a non-stop workload.

Segueing from the Skilled Trade Series, Michael asks Dakotah how attracting and retaining talent has worked for Roto-Versal. Dakotah shares the strong family values of Roto-Versal, and the fact that people are put first has helped spread the positive word. Roto-Versal hasn’t faced a talent shortage, although he mentions that there's never a time when they're not hiring mechanics.

Dakotah also provides insights into their apprenticeship-style program. Valuable takeaways may be applied to similar, privately held companies.

We recondition and repair gas compressor cylinders and all their component parts as well as rotary screw compressors. If you are looking for a top-notch partner for your natural gas compression cylinder repair, then give us a call at 806-274-2214 or visit us online at Disco-Inc.com.

On this episode of the Skilled Trade series on The Gas Compression Podcast, host Michael Haning welcomes back Matt Beaudreau, Co-Founder of Apogee Strong. Michael and Matt also founded Acton Academy Placer together in 2016.

Apogee Strong is a global, online mentorship program that prepares young men to grow into providers, protectors, and future leaders. Matt blatantly says he wants to create a revolution to disrupt the current education system.

Facing the problem of a shortage of skilled trade workers in the industry, Matt addresses the causes and highlights potential solutions. The opportunity for better storytelling surrounding the trades industry is there. Matt and Michael discuss the impact Mike Rowe has made here, but the message is still missing today's youth.

Matt talks about Apogee Strong’s foundations for providing youth with opportunities to sample a breadth of experiences. Then, having had concrete experiences, they’re able to see what they truly like and can hone in on their value proposition from there.

How many parents want their kids to change the world? How many parents believe their kids can change the world? Matt works for this answer: Every Kid. And it will be their choice to make it happen.

Looking for an expert partner in gas compression repair?

We recondition and repair gas compressor cylinders and all their component parts as well as rotary screw compressors. If you are looking for a top-notch partner for your natural gas compression cylinder repair, then give us a call at 806-274-2214 or visit us online at Disco-Inc.com

On this episode of the Skilled Trade Series on The Gas Compression Podcast, host Michael Haning welcomes Anne Pfleger, Director of Office Operations at Hancock Structural Steel in Findlay, Ohio. Anne is also past president of the National Association of Women in Construction (NAWIC), an organization she’s been a member of for 15 years.

According to Anne, women are now more than 10% of the workforce in construction, a number she and many others would like to see higher. She has put in a lot of time and effort educating women about construction and encouraging them to consider it for a career.

Like many other industries including gas compression, Anne is having trouble finding skilled workers to fill her construction positions. She is proactive about recruiting talent by attending job fairs and visiting students still in school, sometimes as early as first grade.

She enjoys engaging with students to get them to think about construction from different angles. An example she gives is telling young people who are into technology that flying drones is a job in construction.

She gives some valuable tips for engaging people at job fairs, which apply to any skilled trade industry.

We recondition and repair gas compressor cylinders and all their component parts as well as rotary screw compressors. If you are looking for a top-notch partner for your natural gas compression cylinder repair, then give us a call at 806-274-2214, or visit us online at Disco-Inc.com.

On this episode of the Skilled Trade Series on The Gas Compression Podcast, host Michael Haning welcomes Michelle Blevins, Owner and Publisher of C&R Magazine, the only independently-owned publication dedicated to serving cleaning and restoration contractors.

The cleaning and restoration industry is full of blue-collar jobs, and finding the right workers can be challenging. As Michelle points out, technicians have to be on call 24/7, and they may be asked to crawl into a spider-infested crawl space or into a burnt-out building full of toxins.

Because of the nature of the work, she says it is vital to have a culture at your company that gives team members a feeling of belonging and importance. Pay is important, but in cleaning and restoration, treating employees with respect, training them up, and showing them a clear path to make it a career — and not just a job — is just as important.

Michelle has a background in recruiting, and she believes that business leaders and owners should always be recruiting, especially in the current job market. She advises that you move quickly when you identify a quality candidate. Drag your feet and they’ll go somewhere else.

We recondition and repair gas compressor cylinders and all their component parts as well as rotary screw compressors. If you are looking for a top-notch partner for your natural gas compression cylinder repair, then give us a call at 806-274-2214, or visit us online at Disco-Inc.com.

On the second episode of the Skilled Trade Series on The Gas Compression Podcast, host Michael Haning welcomes Ken Rusk, President of Rusk Industries and author of the book, Blue Collar Cash.

Ken is a professional ditch digger. He started doing it as a summer job in high school and eventually started his own company, which today includes over 200 team members.

Ken talks about the decision that high schools made in the 80s to get rid of shop classes and replace them with computer classes, and he brings up a good point: Why did it have to be an either/or decision?

He is not anti-college, but the reality is that college just isn’t the right path for some young people. People who learn a skill and work in the trades can make just as much or more than people with a college degree, and they aren’t saddled with a massive amount of debt from student loans.

He believes that creating a positive culture is critical to having a successful company in the trades. Invest in your people. Find out their goals. Celebrate with them when goals are achieved.

Your people are your best asset.

We recondition and repair gas compressor cylinders and all their component parts as well as rotary screw compressors. If you are looking for a top-notch partner for your natural gas compression cylinder repair, then give us a call at 806-274-2214, or visit us online at Disco-Inc.com.

On this episode of The Gas Compression Podcast, host Michael Haning welcomes back Brent Haight, publisher of Gas Compression Magazine, for his second appearance on the show.

Gas Compression Magazine recently released the results from the annual state-of-the-industry poll, which received nearly 2,000 responses from people involved in the industry from all over the world. Michael and Brent dive into the details of each of the 14 questions to make sense of what is going on with the industry today, and what the future holds.

A hot topic in the industry today is environmental, social and governance (ESG). In the poll, 85% said they were either complying, embracing, or leading the way on ESG. A mere 7% said they are resisting.

One result that jumped out was that 69% of the respondents said that capital spending at their company will be the same or higher next year than it was this year — a much higher number than last year’s poll. Brent says, people in the industry are “an optimistic bunch.”

Brent points out that the poll was answered by all walks of life in the industry. That gives it a true insight over the entire industry.

We recondition and repair gas compressor cylinders and all their component parts as well as rotary screw compressors. If you are looking for a top-notch partner for your natural gas compression cylinder repair, then give us a call at 806-274-2214, or visit us online at Disco-Inc.com.

On this episode of The Gas Compression Podcast, host Michael Haning kicks off a series of interviews talking to blue collar industry experts and sharing some insights related to the labor crisis that has been called the Great Resignation.

Michael talks with Greg Hayne, Chief Innovation Officer at Hayne Coaching Group, an organization that helps commercial roofing contractors build better, more profitable service departments. And how? By teaching them the best practices used by the best service contractors in the country.

Greg has some great insights that apply to any industry, not just commercial roofing. He says a major problem business owners are having is self-inflicted: They aren’t paying a living wage. If you want to attract and retain top talent, you have to show them you care — and that starts with making sure they can take care of their families.

He stresses the fact that if you own a trade company, stop thinking of your company in terms of being plumbers or roofers, and start thinking of your company as a business. Learn how to market to potential labor as well as potential customers.

It’s thoughtful stuff that applies directly to the gas compression industry.

We recondition and repair gas compressor cylinders and all their component parts as well as rotary screw compressors. If you are looking for a top-notch partner for your natural gas compression cylinder repair, then give us a call at 806-274-2214, or visit us online at Disco-Inc.com.

On this episode of The Gas Compression Podcast, host Michael Haning welcomes Jeff Jackson, Field Supervisor at Kodiak Gas Services, the largest privately-owned contract compression company in the United States.

Kodiak offers a 98% mechanical availability guarantee, which means they have technicians like Jeff on call 24/7.  That guarantee is what intrigued Jeff about the company. He thought it would be impossible, but they hit that high runtime mark month after month.

The company thrives on focusing on high level customer service, and their customers appreciate that. They have alarms on all their units, and the moment one goes down they can troubleshoot it, get the right parts, and head into the field to make things right.

Another contributing factor to the uptime is their equipment. They have 172 units in the field, and nearly all of them are Cat/Ariel, with a few smaller Gemini compressor units. Their customers know they’re serious about uptime because they use high-quality equipment.

As oil and gas prices recover, Jeff has seen wells that have been sitting for several years get fired back up, which they’re using small horsepower units on. The upturn has been good for business.

We recondition and repair gas compressor cylinders and all their component parts as well as rotary screw compressors. If you are looking for a top-notch partner for your natural gas compression cylinder repair, then give us a call at 806-274-2214 or visit us online at Disco-Inc.com.

On this episode of The Gas Compression Podcast, host Michael Haning welcomes Andrew Brill, Coordinator/Instructor of Natural Gas Compression at Central Pennsylvania Institute of Science and Technology, who talks about his career path that led to his current position, running a program preparing the next generation of gas compression technicians to thrive in the industry.

Andrew’s passion for the program is infectious, and based on his own life experience. He was struggling to make ends meet as an auto mechanic when he got into gas compression. As he says, it changed his life.

The program is two years, and Andrew strives to achieve a balance between practical training and theory. He wants his students to know what they’re doing, and he thinks it’s important that they also know why they’re doing it.

The students work on actual equipment using the same tools they will be using after graduation. They do a paid externship during the summer, where they get valuable experience working as young professionals with top companies in the industry.

Covid hit the program pretty hard, and there is room for new students interested in learning this interesting profession.

We recondition and repair gas compressor cylinders and all their component parts as well as rotary screw compressors. If you are looking for a top-notch partner for your natural gas compression cylinder repair, then give us a call at 806-274-2214 or visit us online at Disco-Inc.com.