Well, interestingly enough, I grew up in Bakersfield, California, grew up
in a family that was predominantly in the oil industry, well and gas industry
in Bakersfield, spent my first I guess eighteen years there before going off to
college. Well, I want to talk a little bit about energy, because
you know, when it comes to the Shag group, your knee deep in
it, and so much has happened even over the last ten twenty years when
it comes to clean energy, energy in general, not only United States domestically,
but around the world. But as I was taking a look at your
fantastic and really cool resume, energy has been a big part of your life.
And you just mentioned about Bakersfield the oil industry. My dad used to
work in that area with Ralph em Parson, so I know a little bit
about that area and back in the seventies and the eighties when that was a
really big deal. But tell me about all the different things before we get
to show group, about what you did in this industry and just moving around
and learning about what you did over the years. Fantastic I spent gosh,
coming up on forty years now in the energy industry in and around the energy
industry, and I started my career in the independent power side of this.
I started with the oil and gas companies and we started developing independent power plants
to basically serve our needs both electrically as well as thermal energy kind of the
Cojing industry that grew up in the nineteen eighties. Started my career then and
ended up developing power plants around the world for probably the next thirty years,
and that grew into commodity trading as well as pipelines and basic energy infrastructure that
was necessary to kind of serve the global markets. All right, Well,
let's talk about the Shaw Group and maybe just to educate our listeners that will
be introduced for the first time with you as president CEO, and I think
if I am doing my math correctly, you're coming up in a three year
anniversary here pretty soon, if you're not already there yet. But as president
CEO, what exactly is the Shaw Group? Well, the Shaw Group is
a pipe and module fabrication business. So our clients are construction companies, large
engineering procurement construction companies that use our projects, use our materials that we fabricate
for them in the construction of everything from renewable energy, petrochemical, chemical,
straight oil and gas, water, wastewater, pharmaceutical, food and beverage,
anything that uses pipe, Michael, So we fabricate. We fabricate that pipe
and turn it into a useful product. We buy raw pipe, we cut
it, fit it well, did bend it, add the valves, add
the other appropriate things, and make it to the specifications that our clients are
looking for. Okay, now, speaking of your clients, I'd like to
talk about that. We don't have to get in any specificity with a certain
client, but what kind of clients are you working with in Before you answer
that, I'm not understanding. You were domestically and overalls in the Middle East
too, and you can expound on that. But what kind of clients do
you work with? So we work not only with end users. So could
be a pmceutical company, a tech company. Couldn't be a food and beverage
company, or major oil and gas company or chemical companies. We're building everything
from renewable plastics plants right now through traditional oil and gas facilities across the spectrum,
and our clientele predominantly are the engineering, procurement and construction firms globally.
But we do work with the end users as well, or we work with
construction only contractors. I imagine when it comes to international that must be growing
exponentially. It really is. And we see, you know, kind of
the global energy transition that's happening across the world right now. There's been a
huge underinvestment globally in our energy infrastructure for probably the last twenty years. And
now you couple that need to rebuild the energy infrastructure with this energy transition to
bring more renewables and more clean energy available to the globe. That has created
a tremendous amount of demand globally. Our offices in the Middle East, in
Bahrain, in Abu Dhabi, and we're currently expanding into Saudi Arabia. Now
there we're seeing not only traditional oil and gas type of projects, but we're
seeing a lot of green energy projects. We're seeing green hydrogen, blue hydrogen,
We're seeing wind solar, We're seeing a lot of clean natural gas,
a lot of other types of things that are rather relatively new to that region.
You know, I want to go back to my dad again, when
he was working with Ralph and Parsons back in the late seventies. He worked
on Jetta, Yamboo and all those on the Red Sea there, and they
were building brand new cities. Of course, oil was big back there,
but it always amazed me that the Saudi seemed to be upfront when it came
to anything new and innovative. And I guess working with you, they continue
to do that, don't they. I would absolutely say they are on the
cutting edge. They're not afraid to invest in technology, they're not afraid to
try new things. We're seeing that not only in Saudi Arabia. We're seting
with ADNOC in Abu Dhabi. The national old Company of Abu Dhabi is ADNOC,
and they are investing in new technology, new green technology. So we're
really seeing a lot of evolution in that region as well as the US and
Europe. Michael, I get a chance to talk to a few people like
you from time to time, and my curiosity always speaks about how we're doing
in the US compared to the rest of the world, and sometimes they hear,
well, you know, we're doing pretty good, and sometimes we're a
little bit behind in our thinking. But the technology is there, but how
are we doing overall? When it comes to what you do and working with
all your clients domestically and international. Where do we rank on the world stage
as far as what you're doing. You know, there's a huge push here.
We're seeing a tremendous amount of infrastructure growth. Here. The scale of
opportunity is larger. In the Middle East, the investment size is larger.
As a market. However, I would say we are one hundred percent as
active in the US. There's just as big a push the capital investment again
in Saudi Abu Dhabi and leather Middle Eastern regions. These are large government backed
entities as opposed to here, where you have more of privately held or public
companies that are making the individual investment themselves. So therefore the scale of each
individual investment may be smaller in the US, but in total they're about the
same. Michael, I always like to ask our president, CEOs and leaders
about to success stories and also some challenges. We always use that adage that
it is WINDI us at the top. And with that said, what kind
of challenges is the industry presenting right now to you? You know, the
biggest thing we have is there's been a big shift over the last probably ten
to fifteen years where fewer and fewer people are going into the craft and domestically,
and as we look at that, that presents a challenge. We are
a big employer of craft labor and very highly skilled craft labor. And if
you're depending on which database you look at and which agency you know you read
and listen to, here in the US alone, we're short somewhere between two
hundred and four hundred thousand welders currently, with that expected to grow. You
know, they're just not enough people moving into the craft labor that can provide
a tremendous earning potential for their family, provide a lot of stable and secure
income, and we're just seeing not enough people moving into that. You know,
it's interesting that you mentioned that because I read an article over this past
year about how the trade school industry is going down, and this goes to
the numbers that you were presented there. I remember when I went to school
back in the eighties for high school, trade schools were a really big deal.
So I'm curious about how you're going to get through this issue. Does
this mean hiring people internationally or you know, is it education about you know,
telling people we do need these trade schools. What are we going to
do about this, you know, I think that that is the question that
we face each day. We are taking hands, taking matters into our own
hands. We're starting our own training programs. We have taken one up at
our Walker, Louisiana facility and it was implemented by the employees themselves where people
donated their time in the afternoon. Senior welders donated their time to help train
new elders and take them through the process. And very proudly, we just
graduated nine folks out of that program and all nine of them past their welding
certification on their first attempt. That's absolutely and it was really done. It
really is and so that's a small piece of what we can achieve. But
we've got to continue to grow that and we've got to work with the local
trade schools. One of the things we're doing is we're going to offer a
scholarship program to our current employees and their families and try to get folks into
these technical schools and bring their technical competence up learn these trades so we can
perpetrate what we do into the future. And folks, there's a recurrent team.
When we talk to presidents and CEOs it's about getting creative and that's what
Michael and his team are doing right now. They get those welders trained up
and ready to go. I did want to ask you about a success story,
and I'm sure you have many that are you're very fond of. Maybe
there's one close to your heart, Michael, But over the last maybe two
three years, is there a success story where you said, you know what
the Shaw Group and we knocked that one out of the park, that was
a real good one. Well, I think you know, the Shaw Group
is a long standing ground started in an eighty seven, grew itself and really
morphed in early two thousands into a much larger company. My partners and I
had the pleasure of buying the business back in two thousand and twenty and starting
kind of over with the rebranding of the Shaw Group and starting over. So
the growth that we've achieved in the last two and a half years against approaching
three years in June, is that is our number one? You know.
I think pride and enjoy that we've accomplished so far as seeing the growth,
we've grown multiples over our two thousand and twenty numbers, our two twenty one
numbers, our two twenty two numbers and so on. Our forecast for two
twenty three is well above everything we've done to date. What that's done and
what we're very proud of is has provided a lot of security for our employees.
We employ now over eighteen hundred people. Within the next three months,
we expect that to be closer to twenty two hundred people and with continued growth
beyond that, and to provide that security for our families. A lot of
the folks have worked here at our business for over thirty years. There's generationals.
There's fathers and sons and daughters and grandfathers and grandmothers and people that have
worked in this organization and been here a long part of our group, and
to give them a future is a big, big part of what we've accomplished.
Very cool. Funnily enough, I have talked to so many president,
CEOs and leaders that they started their title their company right before Covid, and
you did too when you bought back the company. So I am curious because
I ask everybody this, was there any pivoting that you had to do and
how how did it work out? Because we all had to change personally and
professionally and where did it take the company to today Over the last three years.
A lot of sleepless nights about you know, we when we bought the
company, we really didn't know what COVID was going to mean, how long
it was going to affect the construction industry, and just candidly, for twenty
twenty in the vast majority of twenty twenty one, there was very little major
construction going on domestically and or internationally, to be candid with you, the
international markets came back a little sooner. They remobilized a lot of the projects
in the international markets, which allowed us to kind of pick up in our
Abu Dhabi, Bahrain shops. They were able to start picking up work a
little sooner, and eventually we've seen now the US catch up and catch up,
you know with a Feurer is coming hard and fast. In the US.
We've had to learn how to do business a little differently as we have
more and more young people joining our business. Those of us that are i'll
say a little more senior. I have spent time out here, and you
know, we've done business one way for the last forty years. Young people
joining the business that they have a different mentality, a different approach to things,
and you know, bringing the best of both of those worlds together.
And I think COVID I mean literally the little things like working from home and
that type of stuff was a real adaptation for some of us. And so
we've found a happy medium in that. I've also talked to our leaders about
this that the one that did vibe it, they actually came out better and
smarter. Would you agree, I would absolutely say without question, we've adapted
to our marketplace and we're getting better every day. All right, well said,
I did want to ask you about the future. And everybody's always warning
about what's next, whether it's your phone, whether it's clean energy, whether
it's anewables, anything out there. And I know as a leader you're always
thinking about that and you're educating yourself with the smart engineers and the people that
you work with on your team. With all that said, for the laming
audience, including myself, what can we look forward to in the next five,
ten, twenty years when it comes to what you do? You know,
it's interesting our business has been what I call a bricks and mortar business
for many many years, has not lent itself to a lot of technology innovation.
Shaw has always been for the last thirty years, has been a leader
in welding technology growth and expansion into new things and finding ways to automate or
better ways to do it. We are making a major investment in our company
this year to automate a lot of the processes that we do. And initially
people think, oh, automation, you're going to replace jobs. No,
just the opposite. We're going to automate more of the mundane processes that we
do and provide let our welders do highly skilled work. Let them do and
what that we anticipate this doing is creating a tremendous more demand for what is
we do, the fabrication of pipe and modules and allowing our craft to get
more specialized and work on the very specific things that we cannot automate. So
we're investing heavily in automation, not only within welding technology, but automation of
behind the scenes, how do we estimate better, How do we use AI
to do better jobs of estimating? How can we automate processes? How can
we transform the way we do things? So we're really we're investing heavily both
in intellectual capital as well as physical properties and automation within our facilities outstanding.
So the future is bread. I didn't want to ask you a little bit,
Michael, about philanthropick and charity stuff. I know that you're very busy.
I know your team's very busy. But when you get a chance to
do anything charity wise, whether it's personally or with the Shaw Group, well
what are you into? So I will tell you that the Shaw Group we
have a tremendous presence in each one of the communities we work in, and
I'm very proud to say our shops are heavily involved in those communities, and
that the employees themselves get heavily involved. They do fundraisers, and they support
the local baseball teams, the fa you name it, and they get heavily
involved in that. And we try at Shaw a match or participate in anything
that the employee base comes up with. And then corporately, we do participate
in a lot of different events. We tried as we are a major sponsor
of a United Way golf tournament every year. We participate in a lot of
our customers events. Our customers are big, the big major world companies.
A lot of those folks they sponsor large events each year, and we make
sure that we have a major presence of those and support them throughout that out,
Sandy Michaels, you wrap up our conversation. If there was one takeaway
for our listeners that had just been introduced to the Shaw Group today as they
hear this conversation, what would that takeaway be that you would want to leave
them with. You know, I heard a great statistic today from our head
of estimating eighty three percent of the work we receive today is repeat customers,
and that's a big deal to us. We want to serve our customers well.
We want to continue to innovate, continue to work with our customers and
give them what they want. So I think the major takeaway is we're trying
to change the way our industry has worked for years. We're trying to change
the way our industry is perceived, and we're trying to be a great partner
with our customers. Outstanding and well said Michael. If anybody wants any more
information or maybe even look at a career or anything else and they want to
learn about the Shaw Group, how do they do that? Well, I
think the number one way to do is you can make contact through our website,
which is simply the SHAWGRP dot com, or please feel free to reach
out to any of us that linked In's a great way to reach us.
We have a lot of ads on LinkedIn, as well as other social media
sites that I'm not familiar with, but I do know LinkedIn as one that
we do a lot of advertising on, and I would encourage people if you
have any desire to come and work in a business like ours. We are
hiring daily. I think we have something like three hundred and fifty job openings
in the US today and growing, and in the Middle East we are growing
our presence there by another couple of hundred. Michael, I can't tell you
how much I appreciate your time in our conversation. Thank you so much for
joining us on CEOs you should know and continued success. Appreciate it very much.
Thank you,