Industry Transformation
Innovation takes all forms, including building a better mousetrap – in this case, it’s one that transformed an established industry There are inventors like Marie Curie and Thomas Edison who discover something that the world has never seen before, and then there are the likes of George Washington Carver and Steve Jobs who re-imagine something that already exists. McMurry’s Shawn Hailey is among the latter. Back in 2011, Shawn Hailey, who graduated from McMurry University in 2008 with a bachelor’s degree in multidisciplinary studies, was working as a line locator for Texas Pipeline Construction, finding and marking hydrocarbon production lines that crisscrossed the Permian Basin. Hitting one, as one might expect, is detrimental. Injuries, work delays, financial 12 THE MESSENGER FALL/WINTER 2021-2022
hardships and environmental contamination are just some of the concerns. Hailey enjoyed the work and was gaining a reputation for being among the best, and other companies were starting to seek him out. The idea struck him: Rather than companies working in silos using their own employees as line locators, why not start a business that offered this service industrywide. With this, LineQuest was born.
Hitting the ground running To understand Hailey’s success is to know where he came from. As a kid, he was always making or selling something, from selling homemade play dough and lemonade to hosting garage sales and mowing lawns as Push Mower Boy, something that became his signature. “I’ve had a way with branding from a young age,” Hailey said.
