Category: Company News

The advantages of owning and investing in your own industrial painting equipment

When you’ve been in the industrial coatings industry and protecting the nation’s penstocks, power plants, and bridges as long as Thomas Industrial Coatings has, you find yourself making a lot of big choices that can have huge impacts on the way you do business. One choice we made long ago was the decision to own all of the equipment we use rather than lease bits and pieces of it. That one choice alone has given us an incredible competitive edge over other industrial painting and coating companies.

So how can a simple thing like owning and investing in our own equipment give us such an advantage?

1. Mobility

You receive two things when you’ve been hired for a coatings job: a contract and a deadline. To the client, that deadline is everything. Nothing else can progress as scheduled until your tasks have been completed. The last thing they want to hear is that you’ll have to push back the timeline on the penstock preparation you promised because the local equipment rental company is backordered on a V-60 6-pot reclaiming unit.

Owning and properly maintaining our own equipment means we can get out to the job with minimal delay. That allows us to get to work more quickly than some other industrial paint and coatings companies, which means we have a better chance of coming in way under that pesky deadline and putting a smile on our customer’s face.

2. Preparation

Proper planning is essential in this industry. After all, by building and following a solid plan of action on the industrial coating job site, you’re helping to ensure the quality and efficiency of the work, as well as, most importantly, the safety of everyone involved in its completion. So why not take the time to plan for the future of your business?

By owning and constantly investing in the equipment we use through upgrading, maintenance and even replacement, we can ensure that each and every part of our fleet is ready for anything, whether it’s the job we’re doing today or the one we’re working on two or three years down the road. It might seem expensive, but the benefits of this kind of preparation can’t be denied. Equipping our workforce with the latest gear makes our employees more agile and efficient, which allows them to take the quality of the work to the next level.

You can’t plan for everything, obviously. Sometimes you need to lease out something to complete a job where even the best-maintained piece of equipment has failed you. But while leasing can be a boon in the short-term, it becomes increasingly difficult to face future challenges when you’re depending on another company to supply you with the tools you need to tackle them.

3. Familiarity

Like a good partner, you get to know the equipment you use over time. You train on it. You get to know how it works and how best to get the job done together. You can tell when it’s working at peak performance or when something’s wrong just by flipping a switch. That kind of familiarity only comes when you own the equipment you send out with your crews.

When you’re constantly leasing pieces of equipment, it can be like forcing your crews to dance with total strangers. They may be similar to what they’ve worked with before, but they don’t know its quirks, how well it’s been maintained, or whether it’ll perform at the levels they’re used to. That can lead to mishaps and mistakes on the site, all of them time-consuming and some of them even dangerous.

The workers here at Thomas Industrial Coatings are constantly training and re-training with their equipment, learning new tactics and reinforcing the best practices every day. A complete working knowledge of the tools of the trade makes them safer, more effective, and highly proficient in every way.

When you’re good at what you do, you’ve gotta own it

We understand that there are great reasons to rent or lease equipment sometimes. But we here at Thomas Industrial Coatings believe that for a company like ours to be truly successful, one has to make the commitment of ownership and investment when it comes to tools and equipment. By choosing to do so, we’ve gained a more experienced crew that arrives at the job site quicker and better prepared to meet our client’s needs, and we can do the same for you. 

Meet one of our penstock coatings experts – General Manager John Lohkamp

John Lohkamp has seen a lot in his fourteen years with Thomas Industrial Coatings. He’s managed crews of ten to sixty men on a variety of jobs all across the United States, as well as earned an impressive list of certifications that include Tank Failure Analysis Training, SSPC training in Surface Preparation & Coating Application and Removal of Lead Paint and SSPC PCI Level 2 Certified Inspector status. This month, we’re asking John about his thoughts on what makes TIC unique, the company’s approach in emerging penstock markets and, maybe most importantly, what his March Madness bracket looks like this year.

How long have you been with Thomas?

I started with Don Thomas in 1999. That’s 14 years now.

What’s your role at the company?

I’m a General Manager. I oversee the team of Project Managers, Estimators, and all the CTOs, Superintendents and so on.

What makes Thomas unique in general?

We as a company are probably one of the most professional painting contractors you can find. In other words, we’ve got the highest-trained, most-knowledgeable guys in the business who also really care about their work. We talk a lot about the safety culture at the company, and everyone is into it from the top down, boss included.

It’s great to have a leader that not only invests money back into the company, but who is also concerned about your safety and family. That just starts filtering down to all of us who work here at Thomas, and it really shows in our work.

What is Thomas’ approach to penstocks – is there anything unique?

We’re actually a very good contractor for that market. In that industry, they’re looking for a fast turnaround, someone who knows what they’re doing and to get the job done on time – that’s what we’re good at. As we’re getting to know these people and we get up north, at Duluth right now, the owners up there have realized that, “Hey, this is not your normal painting contractor coming in here. These guys are safety-conscious, they’ve got the tools, and they’re willing to invest in equipment.”

What are some of your greatest accomplishments at Thomas?

One of the first things I did here. We were able to do one of the largest above ground water storage tanks in the country, down in Austin, Texas. We did a project up in the Chicago area with Inland Steel, too, and it was related to the power industry because it was a shut-down, fast-turnaround, new piping, new furnace installation and specialty linings. We had to turn it out pretty quick.

Overall, though, I’d say being able to grow as a team and grow the company so quickly here in the last three or four years.

I thought it would’ve been that you won the Pinewood Derby…

Oh, yeah, yeah, that was pretty neat too. I get made fun of every time I joke about that. Though I am entering a better car this year – I guarantee it.

What do you do when you’re not at Thomas – when you’re not painting stuff?

I’ve got three boys in high school, so we’re very active. I’ve got one boy in band, two boys in football and baseball. I actually coach 6th through 8th grade football, it’s more of a club team and I’m the Defensive Coordinator for them. Other than those tasks, I don’t have much time for anything else.

If you were having a poker party, who are three people you’d like to deal in?

Walter Payton, George H.W. Bush, and Gen. George S. Patton.

With baseball season right around the corner, how do you think the Cardinals will do this year?

They have the right pitching staff and always have good bats. The question this year is how will their defense/ fielding be. I think they will contend for the Central Division title again and make the playoffs. From there, it is anyone’s game.

Can you give us your picks for this year’s NCCA Men’s Basketball Tournament?

I am going to be a “homer” and pick Missouri to make it to the Elite 8. However, I have to go with Miami, Gonzaga, Louisville, and Georgetown in the Final Four. Give the title to Miami.

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A safety Valentine from Thomas Industrial Coatings to you

Roses are red, violets are blue, and it’s always safety first for the TIC crew. But Thomas Industrial Coatings doesn’t need a special day full of candy-filled hearts or flowers to celebrate our commitment to safety, not when we have a staff highly-dedicated and certified professionals who show their love for a safe workplace each and every day of the year.

For instance, you may remember when we started incorporating the Board of Certified Safety Professionals’ Safety Trained Supervisor program into our training in June of 2012. We were looking for a way of pushing our already strict safety goals even further for our managers and supervisors. By educating and supporting these employees through the STS program, they’re now better trained to monitor job sites for hazards, ensure regulatory compliance, and train their own crews in workplace safety practices than they ever were before.

By the end of 2012, 14 members of the Thomas Industrial Coatings staff had achieved STS certification. We’re proud to say we’ve already increased that number to 16 this year, and we’ve got plans to make sure it keeps growing as the year goes on. We’ve done so well, in fact, that we’ve been listed on the BSCP’s STS Sponsorship Program page, and that means more to us than any rose-carrying teddy bear we might receive.

All of this just underlines our love for a workplace that ensures every member of our staff remains healthy and safe throughout their work day. We think that’s a much better message than you’ll find in any greeting card, don’t you?

It’s a blast: St. Louis’ Metro highlights our Eads Bridge rehabilitation work

While the work we do is fulfilling enough, we here at Thomas Industrial Coatings like a little praise every once in a while. Who doesn’t? So we were plenty pleased to find that Metro had decided to shine a spotlight on the work we’re doing preparing the Eads Bridge for its new coat of paint on their official blog.

Chelsey from Metro’s blog Nextstop visited the job site just before we set up the blast containment area to find out a little more about what we’d be doing. As she toured the future site of our blast containment area along the Safespan, we took the opportunity to tell her all about how we protect not only our workers but the community and river below.

Chelsey highlights the daily inspections and 24-hour air quality monitoring we perform as we blast away the rust and old paint left on the bridge, the careful containment of all dust and debris as it’s swept through the tubes and into our dust collectors, and the strict medical examinations and equipment guidelines we follow that keep our workers healthy and secure. Though one might expect these kinds of precautions on such a huge job, we bring this type of level of commitment to safety of both the environment and our employees to each and every job we do, no matter what size it is.

Of course, it wasn’t an entirely educational visit. After all, we couldn’t have Chelsey visit without giving her a glimpse of the incredible view we get to see every day. You can take a look at some of the things she got to see in her Flickr slideshow. Thanks to her and to Metro’s Nextstop blog for coming out!

Thomas Industrial Coatings named among St. Louis’ best in industrial painting

St. Louis-based industrial painter, Thomas Industrial Coatings, was recently honored at the Finishing Touch Awards by the Painting & Decorating Foundation, the Wall & Ceiling Industry Advancement Fund, and St. Louis Construction News and Review. Winning projects were judged based on craftsmanship, creativity, execution, difficulty and color design.

Thomas Industrial Coatings swept the Industrial Structures category, taking home first and second place, along with the honorable mention. The company’s work for the Melvin Price Lock and Dam won first, followed by a second-place finish for the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway West Closure Complex painting project. The MV Dan Jaworski was awarded an honorable mention.

“We couldn’t be more proud,” said Don Thomas, president and founder of Thomas Industrial Coatings. “It’s always an honor to win an award for your hard work. Winning an entire category means we’re doing something right. A sincere thanks to our management staff, field employees and all who dedicated themselves to these outstanding projects, as well as the Painting & Decorating Foundation. We’re honored to be a part of their organization.”

Restoring and protecting infrastructure with a fresh coat of industrial painting

At Thomas Industrial Coatings, we’ve found ourselves painting a little bit of everything. From fire hydrants to bridges and from large networks of pipe to other energy-related infrastructure painting – it seems like we’ve done it all in our more than 20 years in business.

And while pipeline painting services differ greatly from, say, bridge-painting services, there are commonalities that transcend. One of which is the fact that our work as an industrial painting company can help restore and protect the already existing infrastructures that span our country.

Let’s look at a few quick examples.

The Eads Bridge painting project

If you’ve been following us at all the past several months, you know that we’ve been contracted to paint the Eads Bridge in St. Louis, Missouri. It’s a very large job that, when finished, will help restore one of America’s great bridges.

The Eads is a very old bridge with very historical roots. In recent years, the bridge has succumbed to rust and corrosion and is in need of both structural restoration as well as cosmetic restoration. Our work on the Eads will be the first time the bridge has been completely recoated since it was originally built in 1874.

We will be supplying a rust-inhibiting coating that will help play a very important role in extending the life of the structure at least another 50 years.

Utility and energy painting for Minnesota Power 

Another client of ours that has decided to go the way of restoring infrastructure that already exists, versus only building brand new infrastructure, is Minnesota Power.

Minnesota Power is a utility company based in Duluth, Minnesota, that provides electricity to a 26,000 square-mile service area. They are a provider of energy services and their company’s roots date back to the late 1800s. While they certainly have new construction that they tend to in order to keep their services at their best, they often put money into restoring infrastructure that already exists.

Currently, we’re working with the folks at Minnesota power to prep and paint penstocks in order to ensure their longevity.

The Alexander County Truss Bridge painting project

A third example of our work helping prolong the life of a historic structure is our painting on the Alexander County Truss Bridge in Alexander County, Illinois. This bridge dates back to 1933 and it rests just east of Cape Girardeau, Missouri. It carries Old Illinois Route 3 over a tributary to the Mississippi River – the Sexton Creek.

Like any bridge, over time, rust and corrosion had begun to takeover the almost 80-year old bridge. So before applying a three-layer coating, we had to first blast the bridge to a SP-10 near-white blast. We contained the structure for blasting, preventing any of the lead waste from hitting the water below.

Today, the bridge is freshly coated with a Carboline three-coat system and is ready to carry car after car across the bridge toward its destination.

Much more than a coat of paint

From pipelines and penstocks to bridges and barges, everything that we paint is an important part of everyday living. Historic infrastructure that serves as the backbone for our transportation, water and energy industries is made stronger with a reliable industrial coating. At Thomas Industrial Coatings, we have years of experience restoring the historic and protecting the new with top-of-the-line industrial coatings work.

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