Hiring, safety yield results
Athorough hiring process and an emphasis on safety are key reasons for The Brock Group’s success, according to executive chairman and CEO Mike McGinnis.
Brock’s 2015 revenue of $1.4 billion puts it at No. 9 on the Chronicle’s list of leading private companies. The international company provides a wide range of industrial specialty services, such as scaffolding, insulation, coatings, linings and asbestos abatement. It has 16,000 employees, 2,350 of them in the Houston area.
The company has opened new hiring centers along the Gulf Coast and renovated others in a bid to find high-caliber employees. Its Houston-area hiring center is in Deer Park.
“Many of them may not live near a hiring center, but we bring them in and talk to them about the opportunities. I think we’ve done a very good job of reaching more potential employees to address our customers’ needs for specialized craft services,” said McGinnis, who rejoined the company this year after serving as president and COO from 2007 to 2012.
He is proud of Brock’s commitment to safety, which has led to several awards in recent years. On top of the Bsafe program, Brock will also launch an initiative this year that seeks to promote a company culture of continuous improvement.
The energy industry’s struggles make for a challeng- ing economic environment, so McGinnis is looking for ways that Brock can add value and differentiate itself from the competition — offering multiple services to customers at a facility where they are currently performing only one function, for example.
“Canada has been devoted really to project work, or new construction. Certainly we’ve seen that curtailed dramatically, so now we’re working with our clients to maintain those facilities that are already online,” McGinnis said.
The company also spies potential in the future decommissioning of fossil fuel plants and de-bottlenecking projects in the Gulf Coast.