Energy Crue
Welcome to 'Energy Crüe', the podcast that dives deep into the heart of industry innovation, entrepreneurship, and personal growth. I'm your host, JP Warren, and each episode, we embark on a journey to uncover the passions and motivations that fuel industry leaders. We're not just talking business here; we're exploring the personal drives, the triumphs, and the challenges that shape today's pioneers. Alongside these inspiring conversations, I'll be sharing my own story - the battles with imposter syndrome, the pivotal mindset shifts, and the lessons learned throughout my entrepreneurial voyage. As a certified coach, my goal is to empower you, our listeners, to break free from the barriers holding you back. Join me as we navigate both the professional and personal landscapes, learning and growing together with 'Energy Crüe'
Energy Crue
Hot Seat with William Standifird (President - Intelligent Wellhead Systems)
Unlock the secrets to career success and industry innovation as we chat with William Standifird, President of Intelligent Wellhead Systems. Recorded in their Fulcher, Texas warehouse, William takes us on an inspiring journey from his military roots to influential roles at Schlumberger and now leading Intelligent Wellhead Systems. Discover how this pioneering company has reached impressive milestones, from winning industry awards to committed veteran hiring practices, reflecting the parallels between military service and the energy sector.
Safety, quality, and efficiency form the backbone of Intelligent Wellhead Systems' philosophy. William passionately discusses the significance of these principles in fostering a productive and secure work environment. Learn how their cutting-edge technology enhances hydraulic fracturing sites through advanced digital infrastructure and automation, ensuring exceptional safety, reliability, and efficiency. This episode is a comprehensive guide to understanding how prioritizing safety not only protects but also drives a company's success.
Building strong teams, adapting to rapid changes in the oil industry, and navigating career paths form the core of our conversation. William shares invaluable insights on leveraging personal and professional networks to assemble dedicated and versatile teams. Explore how technological advancements are reshaping oil production, offering cost-saving innovations, and creating new market dynamics. As we wrap up, William provides empowering advice for young professionals: embrace discomfort, take calculated risks, and clearly define your career goals. Join us for an episode brimming with practical wisdom and industry expertise.
Thanks for watching.
Speaker 2:I still get nervous these days. Remember the first time we did this around the rotary four years ago.
Speaker 1:All right, you got to get psyched up.
Speaker 2:I am psyched up. All right, ready and welcome to a new Energy Crew podcast. We're doing hot seat takes later. This is the fourth one that we've done Previous very hot seat takes.
Speaker 2:We're actually in the warehouse right now of Intelligent Wellhead Systems in Fulcher, texas, and I'm sitting here with the man, the myth, the legend, william Standiford, the president of Intelligent Wellhead Systems, and for those of you that are kind of recognizing these two faces together on your screen, you might recall four years ago that we first met on my first podcast, round the Rotary, and that was kind of during COVID years and you were at a previous company then. Since then you joined the team here, not just joined the team, you built this out and done some tremendous milestones, brought some great people on board and also won some industry awards. It's pretty cool. We're going to talk about that a little bit, but hey, I'm here to do this. I like this backdrop right now.
Speaker 2:I just want to kind of give a shout-out to Intelligent Well-Held Systems team. They're a part of the Crew Club family and what that is. It's E&P operators coming together with service companies, talking about technology, trends, what's happening in the Street and all that. They've been a big supporter of that. Not only that, they are building out their. They have interns here that they're training up. Not only that, they're winning awards too. You're driving change, didn't you just win the? What is it? Technology improvement or the driving for a frontier technology, or something? What is the award that was most recently won by Intelligent Wellhead Systems?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was an innovation award for our automation system for valve control, okay. So yeah, I can't remember the exact title either. There have been a few. So we've had a Hart's Meritorious Engineering Award, world Oil, I think we were a runner up. But yeah, we have new technology. It's great technology. So when you have great technology, good service quality, you win some awards.
Speaker 2:And this is impressive too. So not only that. So we just dealt with a hurricane on Monday in Houston. There's been a lot of power out. I want to thank you know, the Intelligent Well-Earned Systems team for inviting my daughter and I up here. We had a great time yesterday she got to visit some of the ROCs, as it's called here, the Remote Operating Control Units. Right, that's right. Very impressive stuff. My daughter really enjoyed kind of learning about the automatic valves you have over there. She thought that was pretty neat. She got to do the digital handshake.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I saw that. I saw the video of it. You're a neighbor in Fulcher, so yeah, we have a great 200 kilowatt generator here. So benefit of having a 24-7 customer remote center. So we have 2000 pounds of propane and a 200 kilowatt generator, which means the lights stay on and stays cool. It's good to have friends with reliable, affordable power With a 200 kilowatt generator With a 200 kilowatt generator, 100%.
Speaker 2:So how this works, william, is pretty much. Let's start off with kind of giving a 30,000 foot view on kind of real, briefly, your background, kind of how you got to this position, where you're at, and then I want to dive into some hot seat questions because I think there's a lot to, first off, be heard from you, but also a lot to learn on my side.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, yeah, what makes William, I guess, not totally traditional, but didn't have the money to go to college right away. So, like any I guess any person who doesn't and wanted to go to college, I went and I joined the army. So it's been four years in the army as an enlisted soldier. It was great, building discipline, learning about basic leadership skills, how to lead small teams, so it was a fantastic experience for me. Got out, started my family and went back to college and was picked up by Schlumberger so worked as a field engineer for Schlumberger, working in deep water, for a few years and then got inspired and went to a startup, a software company. Do you have a question about that?
Speaker 2:I was. Yeah, I was. I'm going to do this every now and then. Sometimes I interrupt because there are certain key things that I know about your past and maybe not a lot of people do so. For example, let's talk about kind of getting that first job in the oil field at Schlumberger. What would you attribute to kind of your, because a lot of people are trying to get in the oil field you know? What would you equate to, I guess, the ticket that you use to kind of get you in the oil field, especially a company like Schlumberger or SLB.
Speaker 1:It was really interesting, because I don't have an Ivy League or a fantastic educational background, although I did go to college and what Schlumberger was really looking for was they were looking for people that were reliable and resilient. So they specifically were targeting military veterans that were also had gone to college, even if you didn't have the right degree or maybe didn't have the right grades, because they knew we were reliable and resilient. And so, yeah, I think that was the main thing that really drove the intersection between myself and Schlumber J at that point.
Speaker 2:I think that's pretty interesting. When I was at Noble Drilling, we had a huge program where we hired vets. That's what I love about the industry. It's very, if you're a veteran or whether it's a second chance or something like that, we bring people back in together to start working on the same problem and challenges?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. I think there are so many parallels between, uh, being in the military at least being in the army and what we see in oil and gas, again, the, the, these qualities, again these traits or whatever, that you know you can work in hostile conditions safely, um, you know how to follow instructions, you're reliable, and the consequences for not being those things are also very great. So, just like the army in the oil field, you know you depend on the person next to you for your safety and wellbeing, for your livelihood and um. So anyway, yeah, it was a great experience. I think they they had it right and um really enjoyed my time at Schlumberger. It was fantastic and but you know, all the good things come to an end.
Speaker 2:So every door closes opens a new window. So let's talk. Let's okay. Let Every door closes opens a new window. So let's talk. Okay, let's flash. If anyone wants to get to know William Sanford's background a little bit more obviously, you can find him on LinkedIn and all that. But I want to talk about kind of your role today, your role here. I mean I like bringing leaders. I like bringing people that drive change, that are inspirational on the podcast to learn from. So talk to me about kind of lessons. Talk to me about kind of you coming into Intelligent Wireless Systems and what has unfolded since you taking the leadership position here and how these changes occurred.
Speaker 2:Wow, complicated multi-part question I know, I do that because I ramble.
Speaker 1:I realized I do that to ramble. Yeah, I came in, I was hired to be the CEO of this company in late 2021. And really the company was a fraction of the size it is now and the company had been around for a few years but was struggling to sort of find its right product mix and how to address the market. I think that they were also struggling a little bit with how to motivate and structure themselves. So sometimes again about resiliency, when you've had a product in the market for a while and it hasn't taken off the way that you thought it would, it's important to sort of bring in some new energy, bring in someone you know, sort of your B line or your B team or whatever, to push it back up.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I came in in late 2021. I brought a small group of people with me, another couple of ex-Lemmerge people that I knew from a long time ago and, yeah, we started building the company. I've started running some new plays. The company had great bones, had great technology, great staff, and we just started running some new plays and we built that company up now to where it's five or six times the size it was in 2021. And we were acquired by Payson in January 2024 of this year, which again is a testament not only to our success but the growth potential that they really see in front of us in terms of extrapolating this structure and technology into the future.
Speaker 2:Well, what's cool about that is Payson has such a huge footprint in this industry and the fact that that's on the drilling side. Now we got the completion side, the production side. That looks like such it's. That looks like such a great marriage of uh or or collaboration between two great companies. My opinion in the industry.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, this is the third time I've been um gone through where a smaller company has been acquired by a big one, and in this case, I think this is the best alignment I've ever seen. So, uh, literally um, iws is the, the Paysan is all about drilling and well construction. They're on most of the drilling rigs, providing the digital backbone, and IWS is really the little brother on completion. So we're where there were maybe 15 or so years ago, and so there's a lot that they can teach us. But at the same time, there's so many things that we have in common. It's like we're already part of the same family. So, yeah, it was a really great acquisition, not just for financial reasons, but also just, you know, um, socially. We're very well aligned in terms of how we see the business, where we see the needs and technology. So, looking for a great thing.
Speaker 2:I think that's fun to kind of partner up with with, with a company that kind of shares the vision and kind of you can build off of that.
Speaker 1:You know you didn't really feel like an acquisition, to be honest. It's sort of again it's it just felt like hey, you know, we, we continue to believe in your potential and so you know we want to just keep helping. You guys do great things and you know we're both. I was with them in Calgary recently with the leadership team and again, it just feels so natural and I think that's important. Anytime you put two things together, of course, if you have money, you can buy anything you want, but when you put things together, um, if they fit together, you can just tell and uh, definitely, that's, that's the case here, so that's awesome.
Speaker 2:So I want to talk so, uh, kind of going on this hot on topic. Usually, when I talk about leadership and kind of oh, what do you do? How to position this on stuff, you came into a situation where it was good technology, it wasn't getting the runway, it wasn't getting the traction. How do you determine where to put the love? Where do you put the attention? Where do you put the energy when it's something like that? Is it the marketing, is it the team, is it the communication? Where do you kind of build on that and kind of dissect the problem to build it up?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I'm going to show some of my colors here, I guess from being with Halliburton a long time, and we had an expression there that cash is king, and if you look at what kills companies, or why companies no longer exist, it's because they run out of cash. That's the only way companies really die. So, in terms of triage, I think, looking at okay, what is our available cash and debt and how do we get to market? Very quickly, what we were looking for were some very quick wins, not only again to bring cash in so that we wouldn't die, but also to energize the team and reinforce the you know the emotional momentum around.
Speaker 1:Hey, we really do have good technology, and so we were just launching a new system which we call digital valve control, which is a more automated version of our previous systems for hydraulic fracturing, and it was just going out to its first field test I think it was in early 2022. So I would have only been here three or four months and we really bet strongly on the success of that system and said we're really going to put our shoulder behind this. And we were right. Engineering and R&D gave us a fantastic product. It fit perfectly with our customer needs and we were able to very quickly get that system to market, get that emotional win also get that commercial win and that's what really sort of started the ball rolling again with the momentum for this company. So combination of things. So I think if you're at a small company, don't die.
Speaker 2:So if you run, out of cash that's your price. That's the bid.
Speaker 1:Don't die if you're at a small company, gotcha yeah If you run out of cash that's the advice, that's the bid Don't die for a small company, Gotcha. Yeah, you can have a lot of great ideas, but honestly, at a small company, if you run out of cash, the game is up. So you have to take stock of that and figure out what plays you can run to try and keep things going. But I looked for again what was gonna make that hit and then you just have to go all. It works when you believe in something.
Speaker 2:It's not about just it being a great piece of technology. You know, we were evangelists, we believed it, our customers believed it and that's what really kicked off the success. How do you communicate that? How do you? Because right now, communication is a big part of kind of what I'm focused on right now. Sure, whether it's, you know, relaying your message, whether it's relaying your message concisely, whether it's as a leader, motivating people behind you, how do you communicate? You said you had Evangelica's.
Speaker 1:You were very behind?
Speaker 2:How do you get the troops, I guess, rallied around that vision?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I think it's important to simplify concepts and not complicate concepts. Talk to me about that.
Speaker 2:Let's pause on that. I want to hear about that. That's great.
Speaker 1:So we looked at there were lots of critical success factors in a company like this, lots of engineers, and so we have lots of engineers playing. But it really came down to three things that we decided was our message. And the message wasn't around this new widget, it was around this sort of three-prong plan, and it was safety, quality and efficiency. And so we basically said, for the entire company and our customers, these are the three things that we're going to focus on in that order every single time, night and day safety, quality and efficiency. Keeping our own people safe, keeping our customers safe, our partner vendors on location safe. So safety was a huge part of what we drove into our culture.
Speaker 1:Then quality we dedicated ourselves to service quality. We thought that was absolutely important, whether you were assembling products on our manufacturing line, whether you're doing an accounting audit or whether you're in the field. And then, lastly, efficiency. Not only our efficiency our efficiency helps us keep price down for our customers but also efficiency for our customers as well, right, helping their job sites become more efficient, because they can't invest in new technology if it's additive. They can only invest in it if it's basically, you know, cost effective for them or allows them to reduce their costs.
Speaker 1:So safety, quality, efficiency, and then we sort of just you, line up your individual tasks in those buckets. I told the management team, everything you do here has to align into one of those three buckets, preferably in that order, and that's how you should basically prioritize your management tasks, and I think that's really, really important for all the leaders out there. It's it's you know. You've got to simplify that message and give your team a North star, give them a rubric, give them whatever they're going to do to prioritize those thousand tasks that come in every day and say look, how does this fit into the to the big picture of us achieving our objectives?
Speaker 2:So what's interesting about that is like I was smiling before it, because if you're in the oil field, you hear quality efficiency, disruptor, you hear all the buzzwords that happen, that kind of float around the table and all that stuff. So you mentioned quality safety. I feel like a lot of people say that you know what I mean, but the fact that you're aligning actionable tasks with each of these buckets, that's what, to me, is kind of the differentiator. You know what I mean. So it's not just words on a wall. It's like this is how we operate on a day-to-day basis.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you don't need a new idea for it to be a great idea, right? I thought the same thing when I rolled it out. I thought surely you could come up with something more clever than this, or you need a clever mission statement. And when I talked to my team, we talked about it. We said no, this is who we are, right? So we have friends and family that work here. We want to keep them safe. Our friends and family and colleagues are on these well sites. We want to keep everybody safe. That's our most important thing, right? Forget the money and all these other things. Keeping people safe is our number one priority and that's what our technology does for our customers. That's its primary purpose. And then quality was the second thing.
Speaker 1:All of us agreed at a smaller company, it's easier that we wanted to produce a great product. We never wanted to have to apologize for our product. Yes, whether our product was that person, that field, tech that's delivering the service in the field, whether it's an accountant dealing with an auditor, whether it's me dealing with another management member, we never wanted to have to apologize for the quality of our work, and so we take that very hard when we do have quality failure. So it's a priority Efficiency really comes. If you do the first two things, the efficiency will come. That's what's surprising. We spend the least amount of effort sort of counting up costs and worrying about you know how do we make ourselves better. When you get safety and quality right, the revenue comes and the margins come with it. You'll find it a lot easier to deliver on efficiency.
Speaker 2:So we've been talking for about 15 minutes. What does Intelligent Wellhead Systems do? I don't want to bring that up at the beginning, but we're talking about technology, we're talking about team, talking about efficiency and safety. I think it's only fair to kind of give a 30-minute view on what y'all do and why y'all won a technology award in the industry, which I think is such a cool thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So let's first of all we're in the upstream part of oil and gas, okay, so we're in the upstream part of oil and gas. Okay, so we're in the sort of you know, find and develop the resource, get the oil out of the ground, and inside that you have the people that do the civil engineering and then we come with a drilling rig and we drill the hole, and then there's the people that complete the wells, so we put in the packers and we do the hydraulic fracturing and then there are the people that come after that and tie that well to the gathering system that gets the oil and gas and so on out. So we're in the piece that does the completion. So completions and hydraulic fracturing. So they drilled the well. Now we're ready to go on and hydraulically fracture and complete this well, basically stimulate to get it out.
Speaker 1:So what IWS does is we make digital infrastructure and automation products that basically take jobs that people used to do on a hydraulic fracturing location and we have those managed by computer and automation systems so that they're safer, more reliable and faster. So think of it as you know, the digital infrastructure for frack right Valves that people used to turn manually. You can automate those valves with our system. You can now control those with a tablet, far away from where the danger is, and then the computer prevents you from turning valves that might be the wrong valves and things like that.
Speaker 2:I was blown away with. I'm sure that you mess with, but I was blown away when my daughter was doing this. The fact that my daughter can do this shows the kind of how, how, the fascination, how, first off, whether it's how cool technology is to a kid, or my day. We used to crank.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a 32 revolutions I'm mostly a well construction guy, yeah, I think the bigger pads. So, on a one well pad, a two well pad, the amount of sort of complexity a human can manage is is pretty much. You can fly that plane right. You can keep track of that right. That's maybe a couple dozen valves. Four well pad, six well pad, a well pad 10 well, you're talking about 60, 70 valves plus ground valves, all the permutations of that. Engineers do the math in your head right. Thousands of thousands of combinations, very easy with tower changes and stress to make a mistake. And so what the computer does is it basically helps you understand what the next move is, what the next step is in the engineering design, and then it guides you through the process of actuating the right valves to achieve the outcome. So you can think about it sort of like an autopilot which you may have in your cars nowadays.
Speaker 2:We definitely haven't played this, not this guy, not this guy, I'm Ford.
Speaker 1:It's like an autopilot for frack right and so you can use it as much or as little as you want. But in general, because humans get tired, it takes a lot of humans to do things and eventually humans do make some mistakes. The computer is an aid to those humans to help them do it faster without making mistakes. So that's what we do here.
Speaker 2:So we were talking about for a great, great overview and, honestly, I love the fact that you have a shop here, you have a floor here that you can actually practice working the booth, you have the hands-on, you can do the job and you also have the rock right there. So if anyone wants to like, they're very open, very welcome to come, to come check it out. I dig it. It's in full shirt, so we can all say hello too. But Houston.
Speaker 1:Denver, calgary or Midland. We do have full shops and full demo setups. It's harder to get you to a fr our shop and basically we can show you how all the automation works. We also use it for training when we have new customers to come in, so it's basically a safe place to look at it.
Speaker 2:As you guys know, the well site is not as safe as being in a nice air-conditioned shop With AC with AC, what is some of the biggest, I guess, when it comes to technology these days in the oil field? I feel there's a lot of companies out there pushing technology, sure, out there pushing technology, whether it's new technology, this technology, all that stuff. How do you communicate the benefit of technology when there's, first off, it was such a huge market for that, and how do you kind of get over that hump when it is a new technology, that people aren't?
Speaker 1:comfortable with. Yeah, there are a lot of great books written on this, so I think there's a few different stages. So obviously, the most effective way to communicate the benefit of the technology, particularly in an engineer driven industry like this, is to have quantitative proof that your technology impacts the performance and efficiency of an analog operation or of somebody's operation who's similar to yours. So on the pad next to you, with the exact same config, they saved X dollars or Y time. But with new technology you don't get that opportunity right. Who's number one?
Speaker 2:There's no case studies without a case, I'll use this after I find out more about it. That's right.
Speaker 1:And so I think that early part what you're looking for is very commonly called early adopters. These are people that have the vision and can see a much less strongly correlated analog. So, for instance, we know that automation and other industries, including in generalized manufacturing again, automobile production, planes, downstream activities, oil and gas we know automation in general makes operations safer and more efficient. We know that that's like in our universe. So I have to be able to get you to extrapolate that to this, that if it is beneficial in these other general sort of categories, then it could be beneficial to mine. Yeah, and there's a group of people called early adopters. About 10% of the buying population falls in that category. So with a brand new technology, that's what you're looking for and those people will be generally supportive. They will try things and that allows you to build up the data and the cases, to make the business case to people that are not early adopters. Okay, if you're not an early adopter, it's really based on your personal and your company's risk profile.
Speaker 1:If you're not an early adopter, then that's what allows us to come in with a case study and say, hey, this is for customer A, this is for customer B, this is how much time and money they save, and then you can make your own decision about whether that works for you or not. Okay, and I love early adopters, by the way. Are you an early adopter? I'm an early adopter. So I have the it's called Super Cruise in my GMC, so I didn't know GM the speed assist, then it has lane assist. But when now I have a green light that it lights on my steering wheel, I can push super cruise and it will steer for itself and it will actually change lanes.
Speaker 1:So Bill Henn and I drove to Dallas to see a customer a few weeks ago and I turned it on and used it for him and it scared the crap out of him. But after you use it you're like, oh my gosh, this is actually way safer. All the cameras have to. It has like 50,000 interlocks that it only allows you to do that if the conditions are right to do it, and if you stop looking at the road or any of the things it doesn't like, it takes it off, but in general it is, if you think about again, a car ride, very similar to an oil field operation. You have hours and hours where you're bored by the road is when you're bored by the road and then you take risks to get someplace either quicker, faster or there's an idiot in front of you.
Speaker 1:That's right. The computer doesn't lose track of that. It knows where all the cars are around you and it keeps you safe and it has fail-safes, and so, yeah, we use SuperCrew. So I'm an early adopter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was a little scary but the industry. So, as a technology company, as a leader of a technology company, you have this technology. What is the strategy that, like, do you look at other technology or do you flange up what you're using now, make that better? I mean when it comes to this space, because, again, if you don't evolve, you die. You know, if you don't, you don't, if you don't constantly push the envelope and try new things, get early to, do you focus on kind of the tech you have now primarily, or do you look for new tech to incorporate or you kind of build? I mean, how do you, as a technology company, how do you stay on top of what you can offer, what you can?
Speaker 1:push. Yeah, I think, um, you know sort of what's in your product portfolio and I think for us, I sort of learned very early on at this first sort of startup. I was at Knowledge Systems. We had a customer advisory board and really it's customer driven, and so here we've adopted that same approach. So we have limited R&D budget, like every OFS company, but we do have an R&D budget that we're investing, and so who better to determine what we should build next than our customers? And so we we ask our customers what they need, what they want.
Speaker 1:Again, our early adopter customers, where we have great deep relationships, are very candid with us about what they think fair market value for certain products and services would be. And we have a very strong track record of listening to our customers, building exactly what our customers asked for and then delivering that to market and bringing it to other customers. And honestly, I sort of view it as like, while we have a very innovative technology team, there are a million details to sort out after a customer tells you like I need this or what the benefit they're trying to achieve. But there's no need to outsmart yourself by thinking that you're going to decide what is better for the customer than the customer Just ask the customer.
Speaker 2:I think that's such a cool, the fact that you have the customer value board. This is why we were at a crew club event in Oklahoma City and we were going around the table and Lorraine was there and we were going around the table. Lorraine is over here.
Speaker 2:She got promoted recently. She's Director her around the table, awesome to meet. But we're at the table, kind of going around, and that exact scenario came up. The operators and the service at the table were saying hey, listen, operators are looking for technology, operators aren't investing in technology, they're waiting for the service company to do that. So when the service company brings technology, it's kind of 10% what they want because they're not meeting at the drawing board. And so that was brought up around the table and it was such a great discussion. It's like why don't we start figuring out what y'all want when you know what you at the drawing board, versus us spending all these not us service companies spending money, money, money to invent.
Speaker 1:Yeah speculative R&D.
Speaker 2:Speculative R&D where it's like this is not what I want Exactly. So the fact you kind of bring it back, you kind of shorten that guessing gap, if you will, that's a great guessing gap. Yeah, I love, I think that's such going to be such a valuable thing and also efficient.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that again we run it through another rubric of sort of does it fit the company? Right, because customers ask for things that maybe your specific company isn't. Determine that, yeah, so, like again, we, we know what we're good at. So we have a rubric of things that fit with IWS's strategy. So one of the things for us is is does it make the well site safer? Does it make the well site more efficient? Right, do we have expertise in electrical engineering? We have expertise in software development. So again, we sort of have that rubric, um, that we run the opportunities through and determine if they fit, and we're just very honest with the customer in terms of, yeah, we think we're the right company that can build this type of technology for you or no, we're not the right company for that. Maybe we know another company that's in a similar space.
Speaker 1:Each company, again, is good at think of it like a different Olympian, since we have the Olympics coming up. Each service company is like a different Olympic athlete and so you know you're not going to take someone from the tennis program and have them go run track and field. So when you listen to the customer, um, you know, you, you have to make sure that that intersects with what your business can do, what you can execute, what you're good at and, um you know, leave the other stuff for other people. Be good at what you're good at. Wow, that must be an amazing quote for all time.
Speaker 1:So you're really good at what you're good at and your customers will appreciate you for that. They already have Walmart service companies that can deliver everything in one contract.
Speaker 2:And that's and that's. I think that's such a key thing too, because being being focused and leaning into your strengths before I used to think like, well, no, you need to know your strengths but also get stronger at your weaknesses. In reality, why, like, focus on the strengths, build those up and the weaknesses? That's going to take too much time, energy and effort to even prove that.
Speaker 1:It kind of dilutes the messaging you would end up basically normally distributed as your quality profile to the customer, and the customer doesn't want that. The customer wants you on the P10, which, by its very nature, means that you need to be specialized, really, really good at what you do. I mean, again, I have spent time at the two major OFS companies, schlumberger and Halliburton, and I can tell all of you the same way you read the news they have bought companies that are things that they are not good at and have had to regurgitate them back to the market or divest them or wind them down, because it's like we're not an IT company, we're not a this company or that company. And so, yeah, be good at what you're good at and leave the rest for other people, right?
Speaker 2:Okay, let's talk about good at what you're good at, then, All right. So I want to talk about building a team, putting the right people around you and all that stuff. You have done a tremendous job bringing in some great people from you know, from Bill Tracy, all these people, even some some great interns there. How, what advice do you have out there? Cause this is all about, obviously, this is not for us. This is for people out there to kind of learn from, learn from us. What advice, or what? What, whether it's advice, red flags or whatever what do you hire on? Is it the expertise? Is the personality? Is it the culture fit? What do you go for when you are building your team?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So let's talk first, I guess, about smaller company or when you're starting off. So I think that over time, your network right, if you're coming to a small company and you only need a small group of people, really your first stop is always in your network. And in my network is in my professional network, it's in my friends and family network, uh, because again, you're looking for people that um are known quantities, that are reliable, that fit with your ethics and morals about how you want to run a business and you're when I say ethics I mean your work ethic right. So um and so that's that's really important.
Speaker 1:And the people that I like brought here and I've been successful with other companies are people that are in my orbit from other experiences I've had over time. So my first stop when I came to IWS um to do some retrenching here wasn't to go open an ad or hire a headhunter. I called my friends right and I said, oh my gosh, I just joined this company, I'm the CEO, we have to turn this thing around. Here's what I want to do. Who wants to come join me? And because I feel like I've treated people decent over the almost three decades I've been in the business and I've been reliable to them as a colleague and sometimes a friend. A number of those people chose to join me. Some of them dropped good jobs and said absolutely, we're on board, let's go. What does that do?
Speaker 2:to you I mean said absolutely, we're on board, let's go. What does that do? To you I mean I'm stable, got this. Did it all this stuff? Next thing, I know jump ship. How does that add fuel or diesel to the?
Speaker 1:fire, I mean, or the pressure or whatever it is oh, it just absolutely energize the team right? I think that when you have a heavy lift to make or a big challenge in front of you again all the way back to when I was in the military you don't look to headquarters, you don't look to the generals, you don't look to the politicians, you look for the guy next to you in the foxhole. That's the guy that you're fighting for, guy or gal, and with business, I think it's the same thing. So I'm always looking for those people that I know have my back. They're smart, they're focused, they are definitely in tune and can execute their business, but they're also people that, again, we know each other. They know they can count on me to do my piece at this company, and I know I can count on them to do their piece. And I think that's where you start and I think that's why I enjoy talking to.
Speaker 1:The people are normally distributed. The people are all the same. It's this that it's not. It's really not. This is about small groups of people being motivated to execute on task, and if you have the ability to assemble small groups of people that can get focused and execute, you can do amazing things, things that have far bigger impact than you can when you're an arbitrarily appointed president or VP at a multi-billion dollar company. You just can't. What is a red?
Speaker 2:flag for you when you are talking to a potential, whether it's a company or a person that kind of wants to join the team as a leader. Is it the work ethic? Is it the inability to be coached? What is the kind of a red flag that you kind of pick up on? It's like this really isn't a fit.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So one of the main things that we look for is or that I look for is I'm looking for people that are willing to do anything, and what I mean that is is, regardless of your title, position, authority, how much you make, what your net worth is where you went to school. If there's a dirty dish in the sink, you're going to wash it. If, shit, if the trash in the galley is full, you're going to take it out. There's a gum wrapper on the floor, you pick it up. We talk about that a lot at IWS on my leadership team um, that we lead by example doing that. So when we go to the field, we help.
Speaker 1:Um, uh, bill Hinn, our sales VP, was just at a demo and, uh, and he was telling me we got behind setting things up and you know, uh, he, he hollered at the salespeople let's go, let's unload the truck, right, there's no room for people standing around. Hey, throw the cables on the shoulder, let's get this done. And I think when you have people like that, right, it's a state of mind that they deliver through their actions. They're going to do great things for you, right? They're not going to wait for somebody else to follow up after a meeting, right, because their position, authority and title was too high. They're not going to wait to ensure that that customer is satisfied, right, they're accountable, they believe in the business. So red flags are when I see people that are very much hey, this is my job, I only want to do what's inside the four walls of my job and I don't want to do anything else yeah.
Speaker 1:And especially anything that's menial, because at small and medium-sized companies there are a lot of menial tasks that we all have to do.
Speaker 2:My first job in the world field was HR temp and I did mail.
Speaker 1:I sort of mailed.
Speaker 2:Not only that, I also had to go around and fill chairs because the offices were in chairs, so I had to measure, I had to inventory small, medium and large chairs. That's my first job, that's what I did. That's what I did. But again, you do what you do. You do what you're told.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when I was just out in Midland I had to go over to. We're getting a new shop built, so we're building a new big shop in Midland to go to our bigger one. But anyway I had to go look at door finishes at a neighboring shop, because who else is going to do that?
Speaker 2:I would have to take. Actually, I have a few minutes to go do it. I'm just going to knock this out instead of telling somebody who's going to tell somebody who's going to tell somebody to do it. Sometimes you know in the short term and the long term where this industry is going. Whether it's company size, consolidation, technology, whatever that is, I don't care. Pick your poison with that. But I also want to ask you kind of reflective as someone that's been in this industry and the reason I'm kind of saying this so I can say it, so I can come back to it For someone that's been in this industry for 30 years, for someone that's kind of been at the big companies, someone that's been at the small startups, someone that's now at a technology company winning awards, building blowing and growing right now. Let's start off with kind of the forecast when is this industry going? Then let's kind of tie it back to kind of reflection, like what insight can you provide to others out there?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's a big question. So I'm going to confine my comments to upstream, which is where I work mostly, and let's talk about a few perspectives. So this is my perspective, and I'm going to talk about just North America land first. So, north America land. I think that technology enhancements created a wave of productivity, enhancements that you're seeing show up in our production results, right. So less capital equals more barrels out, right? That's what the operators found out. And again, simulfrac, continuous pumping, longer laterals all these things you hear, right, e-fleets all these things had their part to play in contributing to that. Iws2, our microscopic part, we contributed to that. And so what the operators have said is okay, to get this much production, I don't need to invest as much capital. And so for the operators, they're producing fantastic volumes of oil at a lower lifting cost. So for them, the market remains very strong in terms of cash, productivity and ability to return cash to shareholders. And for M&A, okay.
Speaker 1:And that's why you see all this M&A it's great Right Is they want more efficiency, but they also need more acreage now because the money's good. So on the service side that means the market for us is flat to down because these productivity enhancements just like when we had directional drilling you don't need 1400 rigs if you can drill two mile long laterals right. So because we've made these enhancements in technology, they're just not going to spend as much getting the oil out in North America. So for the service segment that means that overall spending is probably flat to down, a little bit right, and it's going to remain very competitive. I've seen a lot smarter people than me at Daniel Energy Partners and others think that there's going to need to be continued consolidation in the oil field service side now too, now that a lot of the M&A amongst the operators is done.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you've seen that with. Spears is saying that too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the big shots have been fired. Spears has been saying that Much of smart people again, much smarter than me, kimber Light, all these guys. So I think that's for us in North America. For international, which I spent most of my career in but I do nothing in right now, it seems like it's going to be slightly higher overall. So a lot of oil coming from sanctioned regimes right now. But overall I think you continue to see strong investment in the Middle East, africa, latin America, and so those markets are going to be slightly higher.
Speaker 1:So overall, probably pretty flat in the next couple of years, I think in North America, like what we see through across the dash of my car every day is, I see fierce competition amongst the service providers, which again, is what the operators want. So we're probably in a position where we're going to continue to see pricing pressure. Having said that, if you have new or innovative technology, if you can demonstrate that you can save the customer money, you are going to be in a successful business and in a position to do well. If you're selling a product that has lots of alternatives for the customer, you're going to be challenged. There are just too many people selling those products.
Speaker 2:I was literally about to ask you what would be a key to success in this hyper-competitive market and smaller market.
Speaker 1:I still think safety, quality and efficiency. If you can work safe in the oil field and you deliver exceptional service quality for your customers, you are going to be prized and I think you'll win a price. Premium Service well-sized service in particular, really matters.
Speaker 2:That is such a challenge, though these days it's so tough to find good people that stick around.
Speaker 1:It is you have to treat them right and again, as a leader in business, I can tell you that that is not always easy. So we're under a lot of pressure to contain costs and to produce returns. All leaders are they're not being truthful if they're telling you not, and people are a big cost to that. People are a big part of that. They're a big cost. So you know we have to take risks as leaders to make sure that we, if you want a sustainable business, that you're a champion for your people, that you're fair, you're reliable and you know you have a great place for them to work.
Speaker 1:And if you do that, I reliable and you have a great place for them to work. And if you do that, I think you have the ingredients there that will help you deliver exceptional service quality. That will really help your business and the returns long-term. But short-term, you can always take the cost out right. That's why so many people do it. I'm going to chop costs and then deal with the quality later, but that's not sustainable. So if you want to have a sustainable business around service quality, you're going to have to be, you're going to have to have a moderated view on cost control.
Speaker 2:All right. So, okay, let's, let's, let's shine in on a little. Well, let me ask you a question real quick. As you grow right, as IWS grows, by treating people right, by hiring the right people, you can maintain that culture.
Speaker 1:That's the goal. That's what we try and do every day.
Speaker 2:For me, that's, that'd be so daunting. I mean it's, it's, it's a shop, but like this is it's a growing organism.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that um as important as hiring good people is to make sure as well that you don't retain bad people.
Speaker 2:I think that is such an underheard lesson.
Speaker 1:Have you heard of the CEO that's paying new employees $5,000 to quit what? He's? A tech CEO in San Francisco, yeah, so they have a bonus program that basically says if you're a new hire and you choose to quit in the first 90 days, they give you $5,000 because the employee knows if they're a fit for that company or not, and it's not a good or a bad thing. Like all of us have different cultures, but this is new. But I think as we hire and grow again we're. We're much, much larger than we were a couple of years ago. It's important to again treat people right. There are very good ways to do that. It's not about firing somebody or running somebody off. It's about treating people fairly. But sometimes it's not a fit. Your culture, your work ethic, that's just how it is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it may not fit A lot of young people, maybe their first or second job. Sometimes they get hired for a job. Maybe it's a new job because it was a promotion and it just isn't the job they want. So, as an example, a lot of people don't really know what data science is until they find out that that's staring at like our scripts and spreadsheets for your whole life.
Speaker 1:It sounds cool yeah it sounds cool, I'm data science, but yeah. So in that case, again, you have this social component. But I think you, again you try and overall I think the thesis for me has been we've got to treat people right. That's the filter I sort of run it through, you know. Is it an equitable relationship between the employer and the employee in terms of compensation, work-life balance, all these things? Because we're going to expect a lot out of you here. You work at IWS Paysan. We expect a lot out of you, we expect a lot for our customers and that's important to keep all of us here in the ship afloat. So if that's not the fit for you, if that's not how you think about things, then same way if you can't work safe, you can't work at IWS yeah.
Speaker 1:Just, it's full stop, not if that's one of your buckets.
Speaker 2:It's top bucket, not if that's the driving North Star here. So, three decades in this industry. Three decades in this industry. What advice, number one, would you give to your younger self? But also, what would you give maybe either seasoned people out there listening or the next generation coming in? So what advice would you give to? Would you always go by William, yeah, william, brad, no, billy, no, billy, all right. So what advice would you give? What advice would you give a little William?
Speaker 2:uh, starting off his career that you wish you knew earlier out there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I want to do the second question first.
Speaker 2:I don't know what.
Speaker 1:I'm going to do the second question for people coming in now, cause I think I can speak to it better. I think I can speak to it better. I think it's hard to go back in time on yourself. So I think that you need to understand what you're trying to accomplish, right, and so you don't want to get to a point in your career where you're envious of one path or another. So this really starts with how much risk you're willing to take, and you and I talked yesterday a little bit about risk right.
Speaker 1:So if you want to be an executive or you want to make a lot of money, you're going to have to take a risk. You're going to have to do a job that somebody else doesn't want to do, probably in a place somebody else doesn't want to do it, probably for hours that are a lot longer than somebody else wants to do as an example, and if you're willing to do those things, you will create a trajectory for your career that is different. That somebody says no, I want less of that right. I want to choose where I want to live. I want to live in Denver so I can go skiing every year. I don't want to live in Lagos, nigeria or Indonesia or any of these. I mean great oil field places, saudi Arabia for me, I would go to Saudi Arabia for a year and a half.
Speaker 2:Yeah, dharan, it's a great place, by the way.
Speaker 1:Dharan. It's a great place. By the way, they have some crazy good food in Dharan Great food.
Speaker 2:And driving there is like a video game. There's no rules, it's like yeah, anyway, so yeah. But I like that, the point of getting uncomfortable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, yeah. So your ability, your trajectory, is definitely governed by your willingness to get uncomfortable and again, that's different than somebody who doesn't want to. You need to set that for yourself. It's not the company's job to set that for you. The company will wrap its arms around the trajectory you want. So if you're comfortable staying where you are, you know. You need to have that clear in your mind and clear in your management and leadership mind. If you have these aspirations of going higher place, you need to set yourself up mentally that I'm going to have to take risk, I'm going to have to be uncomfortable and I'm going to basically build the velocity of my career off that risk. Right Again, smaller companies also massively higher risk than bigger companies. With pensions, small companies run out of cash. They can't make payroll sometimes. Sometimes they crash entirely.
Speaker 2:Big companies you have good stories from that, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So you just I think for the new people entering it, what I find for young people is you know they need to know what they want. It's it's hard for the business or hard for us as more experienced people. I can't tell you what you want. So I'm constantly interrogating people like do you want to move to Denver? Do you want to move to Calgary? Do you want to move overseas? Would you take a job in a different department? Oh my gosh, I'm in. I'm in operations. How could I ever go into sales? I'm in sales. How could I ever go into marketing? You know what I mean, and so you know your willingness to say no, I'll do something new, I'll go someplace different. That will change your trajectory. If you're not willing to do that, that's okay. You can still be very successful, but don't set your expectations above where you're willing to.
Speaker 2:You know go for yourself, although just a kind of a personal reflection, I hope you don't mind me sharing. So, like when I started in the oil field, I graduated in marketing, texas A&M. I went to France to get a master's in the European people.
Speaker 2:I was like I'm going to live in France. I'm going to burn heaters all day and drink wine. That's what I'm going to do. I got back letters. You like this. I'm like, yeah, sure. Then I saw people coming out. I'm like what did they do? Like that's marketing. I'm like I don't know that marketing is.
Speaker 2:So I started working offshore offshore at 29, yeah, started pulling slips at 29, all that stuff. Then it worked derrick's, my condo happened. Then I went to saudi arabia. So every time I made a decision that was out even and this, and then I got in sales in 2012, yeah. So every decision I made that got me out of my comfort zone. I didn't know the end result, I just knew that, okay, this sounds like a new chapter. This sounds like it's going to be an interesting experience, whether you know the end result of that. If I do A plus B, it's going to equal C. You don't know what that equals, but it's been really just the experience, just the people you meet and the opportunities that open up, because I remember I didn't get that job in Saudi because once they found out that offshore experience like oh, operation experience so again, being uncomfortable and getting out of your comfort zone, and if you limit yourself geographically, you limit yourself vertically. Yeah, that's what my dad taught me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I did business school 101, right, and again, for all you business people out there, you know, right, if you want to return on your money, you have to put your money at risk. You are the same thing as an asset. So the higher the risk, the higher the return. Right, that's the way business, that's the way the universe sort of works. And you can get lucky, right, you can go put a lottery ticket in and win it and do it that way. But if you think about it, even a college degree is an investment. You're putting down a few hundred thousand dollars or your parents did. That's a risk and you're hoping to get a return because I can get a better job that will earn out over a period of time. So your career is the same way. The difference is just like you decided. Maybe you went to college or you didn't. You need to decide for yourself. Hey, I'm either willing to do this or not. It's not the employer's job or it's very difficult for the employer to tell you what to do. Often we get that wrong if we try. That's why it's better for us to ask and for us to know, like, hey, this person said they are willing to do this or that. I know they either can or they can't, based on their personal situation. Can I tell one story? It's kind of funny. Let's wrap this up with this, absolutely Okay.
Speaker 1:So a good friend of mine is a trial attorney, very successful trial attorney like unbelievably successful here in Houston, tv commercials and everything else. So his story is, which I always go back to he started out as a bagger at Kroger and he had got like a bachelor's degree in English or liberal arts or something and became the front end manager at Kroger and that was his life. And one of his colleagues went to law school From Kroger, from Kroger, and became a lawyer and he literally said I looked at that guy and said if he can go to law school, I can too. Knew nothing about being a lawyer, had no friends or family that was a lawyer, but had heard he wanted to make money, that lawyers make good money, and so he took out loans and enrolled at South Texas College of Law, became a lawyer, worked at a firm and he's like amazing, wildly successful, um, hardcore rodeo guy If you're here in town he's actually one of the rodeo VPs in town.
Speaker 1:Okay so, but his story is again. He took a risk. He he literally was not happy as the store manager getting had college, could have stayed there, probably made 60, 70, 80, a hundred thousand and said man, I'm going to law school and I'm sure his family was thrilled, like what? But I think it's in the oil fields. The his family was thrilled, like what? But I think it's in the oil fields. The same thing, right, a door will open. You don't know what that is. Maybe it's a small company, maybe it's an overseas assignment, maybe it's a job in a different department, maybe it's certification. You have to decide whether you're going to go through that door or not, and not all the doors you should go through, but definitely if you feel like you need a trajectory, you're going to have to take some gambles on those doors.
Speaker 2:A hundred percent, I love how you just dropped that at the end, because I mean, I'm thinking about every decision I made in my career has been extremely uncomfortable. I grew up in Connecticut. I know anything about the oil field, nothing about the oil field, so every step you're right has been kind of a. It's been a challenge, it's been a stretch, but it's been like you meet some of the greatest people. Yeah, now you have your own business. Now I got my own business, but we're all figuring it out, aren't we? So? Um, hey, I appreciate your time. I know that, uh, that that's that. This is the the, the second time that you see me at 24 hours. I'm probably kind of getting a redundant around here, but I want to thank you for, honestly, everything that you do, uh, not just I mean. So. Another thing that, uh, william, is like you have I've noticed you all had interns last year. You have interns this year. It's like you're very involved in kind of the next generation, kind of bringing them up.
Speaker 1:I love the fact we have so many young people that work here too, from the neighborhood Again, a lot of, I think, the oil field, myself included. We're really good at finding sort of loose electrons, People that graduated college that didn't have their plan in order. Come talk to me. So maybe you have that. You know you didn't have all a 4.0 average in engineering school, or maybe you have a liberal arts or some other kind of degree. Come find us in oil and gas again with the right attitude and make the right decisions. If you're reliable. We hire so many of those people here. So, yeah, we have a disproportionate number of interns, because I really feel like we're building the future. We need to do our part again to be a decent entity, be a decent stakeholder for the community and help people. Plus, as you know, they are a lot of fun. We do smile a lot sometimes.
Speaker 2:But it's funny. I remember I was having breakfast with him. I was like, so what do y'all think? I think there was like the third week and they're like, honestly, I just got done with like two weeks in the rock.
Speaker 2:He's like I mean the exposure to the energy industry. It's like, first off, our industry does a horrible job representing us. It's like we are like a deep space technology, nasa style, we're aerospace, but we're going down, yeah, you know. So I remember just around the table they were like the technology and the science that takes to extract all this stuff like fascinating. Like they started kind of digging it a lot more, like leaning in a lot more. So it's funny. It's one of those things where it's like again getting out of your comfort zone. Whether you understand it or not, you start kind of learning the people or the technology. It's fascinating stuff. I dig it. So, hey, I want to thank everyone out there for tuning in again. This is william sandford, the president of intelligent systems, and if you want to kind of pop in, say hello and take a look around the shop, uh, obviously you're welcome. Welcome to do that.
Speaker 1:Absolutely anytime.
Speaker 2:So great, great people here. Check them out. And again, thanks for tuning in to Energy Crew Podcast. We hope you enjoy this and we'll see you soon. Thank you.