Chapter Four Expanding the Dredging Operation

CHAPTER

Four

We do the stevedoring, we do the dredging, the towing, the salvage, and the rentals. We handle everything that a lot of these companies just do one or two things out of, so we can always find a niche for them to fit in. I’ve always been proud of working for Weeks. I love this company like you wouldn’t believe. I have three sons working here now.

John Devlin

WEEKS MARINE EMPLOYEE, WHO STARTED WITH THE COMPANY IN 1985 AND RETIRED IN 2018

Expanding the Dredging Operation

The early 1990s marked a time of dramatic change in the United States and across the world, as the birth of the Internet transformed the way information was shared. Communication became faster, less expensive, and more convenient almost overnight as computers and Internet lines popped up all over the globe. The high-tech lifestyle permeated every company and every consumer, prompting abrupt shifts in all aspects of equipment and staffing. Devices and even heavy machinery were quickly upgraded to work within a digital world, while staff members suddenly began carrying cell phones everywhere, making people immediately accessible, even when working in the field. And with that transformation came updates and upgrades that would allow Weeks Marine to prepare for entry into the world’s new landscape.

Weeks had a burgeoning business by the 1990s, but it would grow significantly larger with the acquisition of American Dredging in 1993.

Key dredging acquisitions in the 1990s provided a framework for Weeks Marine to become a leader in the US dredging industry . Weeks has been an integral part in major dredging projects throughout the country, including the dredging of the Lower Mississippi River . Above is the C.R. McCaskill dredging the Southwest Pass of the Mississippi River in 2019 .

In April 1995, Weeks launched its WMI Journal as a way to keep staff members across locations informed on the company’s latest happenings . With growth came new opportunities, including an uptick in major international work. However, at its core, Weeks remained a family firm with the same atmosphere it had since it was a father-son operation back in 1919. “I would say the culture pretty much stayed the same,” said Ted Weeks of how the transformation of the business affected its dynamics. “Of course, you had a lot more people, and we’ve always managed to get good people to run the company, and I think that’s probably the biggest factor, is getting the people that can handle the expansion.” With those employees on board and working to grow the business, Weeks was poised to become a major player in the marine industry. Although stevedoring was still among the projects it undertook, the company capitalized on its new name to ensure that it would become known for much more.

Forging Partnerships

Weeks had a tremendous amount of strength in the marine industry, but its executives knew that one way to grow even stronger was to forge joint ventures with other established companies. In 1991, Weeks partnered with Bean Dredging, a firm based in New Orleans, to build a dustpan dredge, putting Weeks Marine in the beach restoration market for the first time.

Despite being established in the marine industry, Weeks saw value in expanding its footprint in dredging. In 1993, Weeks acquired the assets of

1991

Weeks joins forces with Bean Dredging in building the Beachbuilder.

1993

Weeks completes a project in the Gulf of Mexico, installing a 200-ton jacket and 225-ton deck in 58 feet of water.

1993

Weeks transports and installs a 900-ton gas compression platform in Trinidad’s Gulf of Paria.

1993

Weeks acquires American Dredging Company, which expands the company’s geographic service area.

American Dredging Company. In the late 1970s, after Richard S. Weeks graduated from Harvard Business School, Weeks attempted an unfriendly takeover of American Dredging Company but was not successful. However, things would change the second time around given the challenges for American Dredging Company of sustaining a capital-intensive business. With the acquisition, Weeks went from having a hydraulic dredge and a few clamshell machines to being a major player in the dredging industry.

Joining Weeks from the American Dredging Company acquisition, Noel Ramos, who is now Weeks’ personnel director, was tasked with developing a centralized human resources department. Prior to the acquisition, each group within Weeks was conducting its own hiring. “It took some hard work and cooperation from everybody,” said Ramos. “What I explained to the employees

With the acquisition of American Dredging, Weeks acquired the R.N. Weeks (formerly the American Atlantic), which allowed the company to enter the hopper dredging market .

1993

Noel Ramos, the personnel director at Weeks Marine, is tasked with centralizing the newly expanded personnel department formed with the acquisition of American Dredging.

1995

Weeks begins working on a project in Barbados in which the firm is tasked with fabricating and installing a 1,400-meter, 26-inch-diameter ocean outfall pipeline with an end diffuser section.

1995

Weeks acquires the Robert, an ex-Berman Towing Enterprises tugboat, from the Puerto Rican government.

1998

Weeks acquires dredging behemoth T.L. James and its subsidiaries in an acquisition Weeks employees call “the guppy swallowing the whale.”

Above: The hopper of the R.N. Weeks dredge .

Below: The R.N. Weeks dredge in the distance during a beach restoration project on Virginia Beach, Virginia, in 2001 . was that we had to be ready, because now we’re doing federal work, and under federal work, you’re required to meet certain requirements.” With the American Dredging acquisition came not only new staff members and processes but also a strong, established presence on the Delaware River and a significant amount of equipment for Weeks’ rapidly expanding operations. This included Weeks Marine’s first hopper dredge, renamed the R.N. Weeks. American Dredging’s equipment was “fairly distressed,” said Weeks President Eric Ellefsen. However, it was salvageable, and Weeks went through the machinery piece by piece to determine what type of repairs would be necessary to get the equipment in working order. “I think with Weeks’ mechanical expertise and marine expertise, we were pretty well suited to triage what we had and what we did,” Ellefsen said. “There are a lot of barriers to entry into what we do, obviously. I mean, to make the capital investment to replace some of these assets or just build them organically would be quite expensive. So I think Weeks has a history, and we continue to have a history beyond American Dredging, of different companies and assets, but primarily assets.”

With its assets and staffers in place, Weeks was in position for further growth. That would be spurred via additional acquisitions, new employees, and

EQUIPMENT SPOTLIGHT

Weeks is able to take on daunting tasks that other firms are not willing to touch, and part of its secret is the firm’s ability to optimize the equipment in its fleet . One such vessel is the Robert, a tugboat that Weeks acquired in 1995 from the government of Puerto Rico . Weeks repowered the tug with a pair of Tier II Caterpillar C32 V12 diesel engines, rated at 1,800 horsepower .

To maintain power in its towing capacity, the Robert is fitted with 2,000 feet of 1 .5-inch towing wire on a single-drum INTERcon towing winch . The tug can carry 46,000 gallons of fuel and 5,500 gallons of water .

The Robert, a tugboat Weeks acquired in 1995, was optimized with a pair of Caterpillar C32 diesel engines.

a significant change in leadership that would continue the Weeks name into the future while maintaining a foundation that was true to the firm’s original roots.

Welcome T.L. James

The acquisitions that Weeks Marine brought into the company through the 1980s and early 1990s not only brought new capabilities and equipment, but also additional staff members. The late 1990s solidified that tradition when Weeks acquired T.L. James in 1998, a major dredging firm based on the Gulf Coast of the United States.

Prior to the acquisition, Weeks had known about T.L. James. Owned by more than 100 family members, they were now looking to sell, and Weeks

Opposite: The Captain Frank (former Tom James) dredge in 2019 dredging the New Orleans Harbor in Louisiana .

Below: The James Journal featuring the Bill James dredge on its cover off the coast of Hilton Head,

South Carolina .(Photo on cover by Aero Photo, www.aerophoto.com.) had an interest. Weeks first acquired the T.L. James/Gulf Coast Trailing hopper dredges. When CEO Richard S. Weeks looked at the hydraulic operations, he decided to acquire much of that as well, “which was fortunate because that’s developed into probably our biggest business right now,” said Richard N. Weeks.

The acquisition, which closed in 1998, helped Weeks grow significantly. Despite the many differences, T.L. James ultimately integrated smoothly into Weeks, and several of its staff members remain integral to the firm’s operations. “Weeks came with a significantly greater emphasis on maintaining their equipment, much more so than our prior companies did. So it helped us a lot with them investing capital in the equipment upgrades,” said Tim Weckwerth, who joined Weeks during its 1998 acquisition of T.L. James and is now vice president of the dredging division.

Mike Peacock was with T.L. James at the time of Weeks’ acquisition and became Gulf Coast operations manager for Weeks’ dredging division. He expounded on the history of T.L. James and its capabilities:

T.L. James was made up of different companies. Number one was T.L. James, which was the dredging division. Secondly, they had a paving company, which was called Louisiana Paving. And third, they had a dragline company that was Atlas Construction, and that was the three components that came up. In the later period, they went into a joint venture with a Dutch company and started a company called Gulf Coast Trailing, which had hopper dredges. Those were the separate companies. The paving company and the dredging company combined in those years. When I started in 1978 to about 1985, we did lots of road construction in Louisiana, and so the components of three of these divisions, which was the dredging division, T.L. James, the Louisiana Paving portion of that, and Atlas Construction, was able to bid on projects like putting roads through the marshes in Louisiana. So to do a road construction in a marsh, a dragline company would come in, cut the trees down, and then muck out the material down to hardpack sand, removing the mud, the old marsh. And the dredging company would then come in afterwards and pump a roadbed down through this—in some places, this may be a five- or eight-foot hole for fourteen, fifteen miles, and we would come in and pump sand, most of the times from the Mississippi River, and fill this ditch back up. And then, thirdly, Louisiana Paving, the third component of T.L. James, would do the paving of the road. So it allowed them to do lots of road construction without having to subcontract work out.

That standing as a total turnkey solution provider, along with the variety of equipment that was part of the sale, was appealing to Weeks. The acquisition included four different-sized dredges and a wide array of pipe sizes, as well as a large warehouse facility where it could store its equipment, said Charles “Chuck” Broussard, who was with T.L. James at the time of the acquisition and is now vice president and chief estimator. The company was also home to machine and electrical shops where it was able to build its own pipeline. “We build 750-foot lengths of pipe and as much as forty and fifty thousand feet at a time,” Broussard said. “We’ll put everything together, we wrap them up, and we send them out to the dredges as they need them on the projects.”

Gulf Coast Trailing

The Captain Frank in New Orleans . With the acquisition of T.L. James came its subsidiaries, which included Gulf Coast Trailing Company and its large range of equipment. The Gulf Coast Trailing asset sale included two hopper dredges, one then named Ouachita, which is now the B.E. Lindholm, and the Mermentau, which Weeks later divested. “They were functional but they did require a fair amount of maintenance, so Weeks put quite a bit of money into both of them during the first years after the acquisition, to bring them back up to Weeks standards,” Weckwerth said.

The acquisition of T.L. James and its subsidiaries was a major undertaking for both companies. For Weeks’ team, it meant adjusting to a deluge of new

employees, equipment, and projects to pick up. On the T.L. James side, it was jarring to go from being a behemoth in its field to working for a company that was not as well known in the dredging industry. “Weeks was a much smaller player in a much larger industry, but they were opportunistic acquirers of dredging assets, and through the acquisition, that allowed them to start their true growth in their dredging division,” Weckwerth said.

Employees from both companies had to adjust to new realities, but once the synergies hit their groove, the new, larger business was ready for anything. The strength that Weeks added to its dredging capabilities throughout the 1990s would serve the company well into the future and continue to bolster the firm’s bottom line to this day.

Weeks Marine’s workhorse B.E. Lindholm dredge .