Texas-based Express Energy Services started its own school to equip employees with safety training, vital job skills and company values.
With their rapidly expanding oilfield services company facing the challenges of a competitive labor market and employee retention, leaders at Express Energy Services decided in 2010 to consolidate training operations near the firm’s Houston headquarters.
The company created Express University, which offers skills training in specific technical areas, safety training, and a solid grounding for workers in corporate policies and procedures. Express was founded in 2000 as a single-location offshore rental support business to the coil tubing market, but it has grown to offer 11 service lines from 35 locations.
The first Express University classes began in April 2011 in a temporary facility. A year later, the training program moved into its own building complete with many of the pieces of equipment and machines Express employees work with in oil and gas fields nationwide.
Gary Childress, executive vice president for human resources and quality, safety, health and environmental, says Express University plays a central role in the “complete rework of our HSE (health, safety and environmental) management system.” Childress, who joined the company as it was emerging from Chapter 11 reorganization in 2009, is the architect of its new approach to training and safety.
With the heightened competition for good workers, he says the company decided it was time to create a program that would not only train employees, but build loyalty. That’s important in a company that has grown from 1,200 employees to a workforce of 2,000 people in the three years since its reorganization plan was put into action.
“It was based on moving more toward employee development,” Childress says. “We make sure they all come out with the same set of tools — the skills and abilities they need.”
The curriculum goes beyond job skills. It also involves “getting employees indoctrinated into the Express way of working. While they’re here, they’re learning about the company, meeting the executives,” Childress says. “We really want people to bleed blue (the company color) by the time they leave here.”
With the program in place, anyone who joins the Express workforce — from field technicians to office personnel — is now sent to school in Houston.
“Absolutely every new hire comes through here,” says Jason Ramirez, director of employee development. The company also sends current employees to the school.
Because so many of its employees are based outside the Houston area, Ramirez says the company built a 48-student housing unit for training at Express University. “This way, they’re fully engaged in the training program and we can make sure there are no distractions.”
Expanding services
The company has offices serving exploration and drilling operations in all of the major shale plays across the United States, in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Colorado, North Dakota, Ohio and Pennsylvania as well as in offshore fields in the Gulf of Mexico.
Express’ drilling operations include casing and laydown services, pressure testing and nipple-up blow-out preventer services. The company also maintains a large fleet of vacuum trucks, frac tanks and other equipment to support the drillings services.
Key equipment in the casing services division includes:
Tongs
- McCoy FARR Power Tongs, 4 1/2 - 20 inches
- Foster Drill Pipe Tongs
- Eckel HSVX Integral Power Tongs
Elevators
- Varco BJ Centerlatch 150-ton capacity
- YC Series 75-ton
- MYC Series 125-ton
- HYC Series 200-ton
Slips
- Varco BJ full-body slip insert style, 175- to 500-ton capacity
- Varco/AOT Baash-Ross style rotary slips, 200-ton capacity
Casing Running Tools
- Internal: Volant 4.5- to 20-inch, 120- to 400-ton capacity
- External: 4.5- to 5.5-inch, 500-ton capacity
Trucks
- GMC/Chevrolet 5500 Series four-door models for casing services
- Mack CX Vision tractors for laydown machinery
Express also offers completion and production services including wireline, well testing, rat-hole rig-assist snubbing, pressure testing, pump trucks and water transfer. The company has also added well abandonment and decommissioning services to clients operating wells in offshore and inland waters along the Gulf Coast. When wells are shut down, Express can handle the entire project from planning and permits to cement plugging and the cutting and removal of well casing, tubing and platforms.
Most recently the company has begun to offer Green Completion services that allow well operators to collect all fumes and natural gas. Operators have the option to sell or flare the gas. The service debuted five years ago and Mike Dobbs, Express manager in Oklahoma, says the company is working on designs that will make Green Completion useable in every basin.
A fresh approach
Childress says that with a “gold rush” mentality growing in the oil and gas industry as more shale plays have come online, Express leaders saw that the company’s rapid growth and the competition for good employees required a fresh approach to recruiting and retention.
“With a lot of people hired in a short time, there can be a sense of alienation,” Childress says, noting the Express University experience can help alleviate a newcomer’s sense of being an outsider.
He says about 2,000 students have passed through the program to date and Express managers are already noting improvements in safety and in employee turnover.
The basic program at Express University runs Wednesday through Saturday, during which students receive core training in topics ranging from CPR and vehicle and fire safety to company policies and procedures. Included in the training is a heavy emphasis on safety. The company’s “5X5” Hazard ID Program and its customer service principles are given high priority during the core training.
After the core training, new employees working in the company’s well casing services and well testing operations stay at Express University for added schooling on the technical skills they will need in the field.
The new facility features 8,000 square feet of classroom and office space and 10,000 square feet of training area, including hands-on installations of much of the equipment its technicians will work with when in the field. A full drilling rig was installed at the new campus, along with well testing and other simulators.
Ramirez describes the equipment as, “Everything you would use in casing and well testing services.”
Express is willing to look outside the box when recruiting new employees. In the current business climate, the company focuses on finding people with the aptitude to learn new jobs and new responsibilities.
“We’re getting all kinds of people,” Ramirez says. “I’ve had people come through here who used to be in real estate, but that business is down so they’re looking at jobs in our industry.”
As the Express workforce grows, Childress says the company is also attracting old hands as well. “We’re getting very good feedback from people with experience in the oil field. People who have worked at other majors are impressed” with the Express University program, he says.
The school has caught the attention of people outside the company as well, especially after an open house Express University hosted during grand opening ceremonies in May.
“The number of customers who want to come in and be a part of this is amazing,” Childress says. Although there is a temptation to accommodate clients, the company plans to focus on its own employees for now.
Although there is pressure to keep the growing company fully staffed, Childress says Express maintains high standards for hiring, including pre-employment hair follicle testing for drugs. “We’ve made very strategic decisions about the kind of people we want to have on the payroll. We want a drug-free workforce.”
Express plans to continue its growth spurt. Despite some softness in the natural gas market, Childress says, “We’re on track now and our strategic plans put us three times (the current 2,000) in the next few years. Our biggest challenge is keeping people and equipment where they need to be.”
That growth will mean Express University would have up to 4,000 students passing through its classrooms, but Childress says the program will handle that student load. He says the uniformity of the training program will benefit the company when managers decide to redeploy workers and equipment where the demand for the company’s services is greatest.
The company’s managers agree that one of the keys to the company’s ability to respond to future shifts in the industry will be a well-trained workforce with consistent skills and values across the many locations where the company operates.
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