NEWS: COMPANY PROFILE
Top shelf
BY SAM BARNES
SWAT assembles elite turnaround team, raises productivity threshold.
B
y 2014, Johnny Holifield and Jimmy Quick had several years of experience under their belts, along with some clearly defined notions about what it means to be an “elite” welder and turnaround specialist. After all, they had honed their skills working 15 years for an elite turnaround contractor, and had mentored numerous others in the process. As sometimes happens, a series of corporate buyouts and recapitalizations led to a change in their employer’s corporate culture. “They went from being the best and hiring the best people, to how much can we 1012industryreport.com
DON KADAIR
QUICK START: Jimmy Quick, left, and Johnny Holifield put the emphasis on workforce quality and productivity from the beginning.
do and how much work can we get,” Holifield says. “They started taking on too much work and grew too fast, and they ceased to be successful.” The two began to feel a profound sense of job dissatisfaction, and following another buyout they decided it was time to leave. With the goal of assembling an elite group of welders specializing in enhanced welding services, they founded Specialty Welding and Turnarounds (SWAT) in Gonzales in April 2014, with Holifield as president and Quick as vice president. THE RIGHT EXPERIENCE Construction was a significant
departure from Holifield’s original goal as a young man of becoming a dentist. A native of Lafayette, he majored in biology for two years at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette before deciding to turn his part-time construction job into a career. Construction was a more obvious choice for Quick—he grew up in a construction family. “I’d get off the school bus in the evening and walk in the shop there,” he says. “I’d meet all the welders and fitters. I was around it all of the time.” While starting a new business can be daunting, the two found that their reputation for fast, expeditious work preceded them, and work came
easily. Finding a good quality staff of supervisors wasn’t difficult either. “When we left, we took our core group of supervisors with us—all of the guys that we trained through the years,” Holifield says. “From 1999 to 2014, most all of the project managers and superintendents were trained by Jimmy or me.” The supervisors’ willingness to leave the safety and security of an established company for the risk of joining a fledgling business was testament to their loyalty. “These guys were fitters and welders, and became foremen and superintendents under our guidance,” Quick says. “We trained them in planning,
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