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Thomas Industrial Coatings says congratulations to its workers on another job well done

Since 2008, Thomas Industrial Coatings has had the privilege of being a part of the Huey P. Long bridge widening project. Now that project is beginning to wind down, and soon the men and women of our NOLA crew will have finished their job. Looking back, they’ve put in an awful lot of quality work they should be very proud of over the last five years. But while pride in a job well done is its own reward, our CEO Don Thomas wanted to show his great appreciation for everything Team Thomas has accomplished with a little bit of fun down on the Mississippi River.

Last Saturday, our workers, their families, and our entire TIC office staff were treated to a riverboat cruise aboard the Creole Queen for a night of food, dancing, and music. Everyone got a chance to kick back, relax, and enjoy themselves after years of hard work dedicated to a successful and safe project.

On Sunday, Huey P.Long Project Manager Josh Thomas took everyone on a tour of the bridge, providing a great opportunity for the families of our crew members to see exactly what Team Thomas does on a daily basis. For those who have never gotten a chance to see our team at work, it was quite the eye-opener.

Everyone here at Thomas Industrial Coatings would like to thank Don Thomas for his generosity in hosting such a great event. And to everyone on our NOLA crew, thank you for your incredible efforts on the Huey P. Long project, and for being true examples of Thomas Pride. Congratulations to all!

Another Thomas milestone: 1000 days with no stoppage or delay at Point Loma Submarine Base

It’s not really boasting to say that Thomas Industrial Coatings is one of the best industrial painting and coating contractors in the country. That’s just Thomas Pride. After all, we’ve got a long history of quality, efficiency, and satisfied clients to back us up. But when one of our crews hits an incredible milestone on a project we’ve been hired to complete? Well, it’s hard not to brag on them just a little.

Painting and coating pipeline and fuel storage can be a tough job, as you may have read in an earlier post here on our blog. It’s that type of project that has been keeping our San Diego crew busy for quite some time now as they prepare the surface and coat the fuel farm on the Point Loma submarine base. They’ve put in a lot of hard work to keep up with both the tight deadlines and high standards of quality the military demands, but they’re training and dedication to professionalism has seen them through to a fantastic achievement: completing 1000 days on the project with no work stoppage or delays whatsoever.

Everyone here at Thomas Industrial Coatings would like to say congratulations to our San Diego/Point Loma crew, as well as General Contractor Nova-UCCO Joint Venture and all the other subcontractors who helped us achieve this incredible goal. Once again, our workers have raised the bar for what should be expected of a contractor in the painting and coatings industry, and we simply could not be prouder. Way to go!

(photo of the Point Loma project courtesy of root-pass.com)

What corrosion does to oil and gas pipelines

Pipeline is still considered the safest, most reliable means of transporting resources such as oil and gas among experts. However, safe as it may be, the threat of ruptures and failures still weigh heavily on the minds of those who maintain and build these networks. There are no minor problems when it comes to the pipeline. Even a slight breakage can result in huge, costly repairs and damages to the surrounding environment, and the culprit is almost always corrosion.

Let’s take a look at how corrosion starts both inside and outside the pipeline.

It’s what’s on the inside that counts

Crude oil, whether heavy or light, isn’t much of a problem when it comes to internal pipeline corrosion. In fact, the oil itself has many corrosion-inhibiting properties.

The trace amounts of water, sulfur, and sediment carried within the crude oil, however, are another story. Due to their difference in density, these small bits and droplets can fall out of the flow and begin to collect on the bottom of a pipeline over a long period of time. Once that moisture touches any exposed steel, it can begin to damage the interior of the pipe in the form of microbial or under-deposit corrosion.

Heat can also be a factor in the wearing away of pipeline walls. The hotter the oil, the better its flow, so most pipelines are insulated to keep its contents at a high temperature. That warmth, however, can also lead to the thinning of the interior walls. This can help corrosion find a foothold within the pipe or cause any existing corrosion to worsen.

As you can see, internal oil pipeline corrosion isn’t a matter of “will it happen” so much as “when.” And that’s just what’s going on inside the pipe.

Pretty and protected on the outside

External oil and gas pipeline corrosion isn’t nearly as difficult to protect against as the internal version. That doesn’t make it any less important to monitor, however, especially with more than 2.5 million miles of pipeline exposed to the elements every single day.

It’s true that oil and gas pipeline has a protective coating applied to its exterior to prevent corrosion and make it more aesthetically pleasing. However, much of the network in service today has aged, and these pipes are still wearing the original coatings they received ten, twenty, even thirty or more years ago. These older coatings can crack and wear as environmental conditions beat away at their effectiveness, opening up a channel for water to make contact with the steel and begin doing its corrosive damage.

Preventing pipeline corrosion starts with you

Keeping the line protected from the dangers of corrosion and quickly addressing it when it’s found should be the top priority of any pipeline project. Thankfully, there have been many advances in anti-corrosion paint and coating technology that can help reduce the likelihood of corrosion considerably. Whether you’re considering applying the latest in interior pipeline linings or a fresh coat of protection on an old pipeline, speaking with a knowledgeable, highly experienced industrial coatings contractor is best. By working together with a company who can suggest the most appropriate products for your needs, you can ensure long-lasting protection for the pipe both inside and out.

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.

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!