Meet our Interns Mentoring and Developing the Next Generation

Transcription

1 Meet our Interns Mentoring and Developing the Next Generation Danos Interns - Summer 2013 High Performance Culture Another long hot summer is winding down and with the end of the summer comes a few farewells to some familiar faces around the corporate office in Larose. Before sending them off, here s a snapshot of what they ve been up to for the last few months. Ginnie Boudreaux Hometown - Lafayette, LA Intern, Fabrication Shop Larose, Louisiana Louisiana State University Mechanical Engineering Junior How did you learn about this position? My father has worked in the oilfield for 28 years, and has worked with Danos along the Eric Hood, Fabrication Shop Manager and Ginnie Boudreaux way. I met some of the team from Danos at an industry event about a year ago. We spoke about my plans to change majors to mechanical engineering. When the summer came along, I reached out to my contact at Danos which allowed me to get this internship to help gain experience in my field. Can you provide a brief description of your work? My internship was in the fabrication/construction division. I observed quality control checks, helped with material take-offs, shipping/receiving materials, MTRs, participated in weekly safety meetings, weekly fabrication status meetings. I am now more familiar with structural drawings. I was able to review bidding and estimating projects, and attended a bid overview meeting. I also have a better understanding of the recruiting and hiring process. I assisted with invoicing jobs and putting time into KRONOS for the fabrication shop. Along with working with in the office and shop, I have also been on many field trips. I have been part of the Shell Safety Day,

2 Incident Free Operations (IFO) meeting for Chevron, visited Global X-Ray, Partek welding and testing laboratory and SafeZone. I also completed a safety research presentation comparing the pros and cons of spoggles versus conventional safety glasses. What part of the internship have you enjoyed the most? I have honestly enjoyed every bit of my internship here. There are two things that really stand out for this summer. I feel like every single day I have learned something new and look forward to going to work. Every day I go home ecstatic about what I learned that day. I am so blessed to have had this opportunity. I have enjoyed becoming part of the Danos family. I don t know a lot of companies where you walk in and everyone welcomes you with open arms. I have become so close to everyone in the fabrication/construction division. I am so thankful to be a part of the Danos family. What have you learned/gained from this experience? The experience I gained this summer with Danos has provided me with a foundation to work moving forward. It also showed me what a great company Danos is and that Danos does it right. I ve learned the importance of teamwork and most of all safe operations. I ve enjoyed all the different aspects of my job. I think going into this upcoming school year I might have an advantage because of everything I ve learned here. Working with Danos has assured me that going into the Oil and Gas Industry is the right career choice for me. I feel really confident about changing my major to Mechanical Engineering. It was definitely the best career decision I have made. Overall, I ve enjoyed my entire experience and look forward to the upcoming school year. It doesn t hurt one bit to be able to go back to school and say that this summer I worked for one of LSU100 s Fastest Growing Tiger Businesses!

3 Brittany St. Pierre Hometown - Galliano, LA Graduate Intern Human Resources Recruiting Larose, Louisiana Nicholls State University, Business Administration MBA Graduate Student How did you learn about this position? About a year ago, I met a few recruiters from Danos at an LSU Career Fair. After Brittany St.Pierre and Julie Plaisance, Recruiting Administrative Assistant speaking with them about my plans to attend graduate school post-graduation, they offered me a summer job. It was a summer well spent. I learned about the many aspects of the company while working in Hiring and Recruiting. After attending my first semester of graduate school at Nicholls, I learned of the option to do an internship for course credit, and I knew another summer at Danos would be a great experience. I approached Danos to partner with Nicholls and myself to do an internship, and here I am! It has been a great summer filled with opportunity to apply what I have learned in business school. Can you provide a brief description of your work? Through my internship, I worked closely with the Hiring and Recruiting department, but also completed several projects. In terms of Hiring, I assisted with administering conditional job offers. I also attended new hire training to administer and facilitate benefit paperwork to new hires. One of my summer projects included researching trends in hiring over the last three years for three different departments. I was able to discover trends in hiring over the past few years, which will help understand the demographic needs in Recruiting. The data has already been used to change the strategy of recruiting for different departments. I spent time updating flowcharts, to account for recent changes in the process. Lastly I took the lead in drafting new job postings for a various positions most frequently recruited. This was the first step in creating a data bank of ready job postings for recruiters to access when creating new job orders.

4 What part of the internship have you enjoyed the most? I have had such a rewarding experience here at Danos. The culture of the company can really been seen on a daily basis. The people that work here really display the values of Integrity, Safety, Respect, Service, and Improvement. I especially enjoyed attending a media meeting and a HR meeting. It allowed me to learn and understand what happens in other parts of the company and see what other people do. What have you learned/gained from this experience? This experience has provided me with the opportunity to apply what I ve learned in business school and witness it first-hand. The leadership class I took last semester has allowed me to observe different leadership styles that different manager s use and also the leadership style of the company. I ve noticed that leadership and values are very important to Danos. For example, the owners of the company know me by name and are genuinely interested in my progress in school and the projects I m working on. Overall, this experience has opened my eyes to how a business runs and has provided me with a real world business experience. Is there anything else you'd like to add? The different tasks I completed allowed me to speak with many different employees. I was able to learn about their job and also get to know them. Everyone was very willing to help and explain things to me. I was able to learn so much from so many different people.

5 High Performance Culture Kevin Biringer Hometown Albuquerque, NM Currently: San Diego, CA Graduate Intern Business Development Larose, Louisiana Stanford University Business Administration MBA Graduate Student How did you learn about this position? I was Stanford s Kevin Biringer and Paul Danos, Executive Vice President looking through alumni database and came across Paul and Eric Danos information. I had spent 3 years working for ExxonMobil before business school, and knew I wanted to do a summer internship in oil & gas. I reached out to Paul Danos and we began talking about the work Danos does and potential internship opportunities. I was really impressed with the company s growth and the values that Danos stands for. Can you provide a brief description of your work? I am developing a business plan for Danos about the opportunity of expanding their construction division into additional service lines. It has involved building an understanding of the work Danos currently does and how these new services may improve the overall business. I have spent a lot of my time interviewing potential customers to understand their businesses and challenges. What part of the internship have you enjoyed the most? The people. The people and culture at Danos are unlike any other I have seen in the industry. People genuinely care about helping each other and doing things the right way. South Louisiana is really the heart of the industry for offshore Gulf of Mexico and experiencing this first-hand has been great. Lunches at B&E and The Balcony haven t hurt either

6 What have you learned/gained from this experience? Up until this point I had seen the oil & gas industry from the operator s (Exxon, Shell) perspective, but this summer has given me valuable experience from the contractor s side. There are many different challenges and drivers I was unaware of being on this side of the business. I have also realized some of the benefits that come along with being a smaller, more adaptable, company. Is there anything else you'd like to add? I ll leave Louisiana a fan of LSU and boiled shrimp. Danos has been a part of molding oil and gas professionals for decades. There are hundreds if not thousands of stories of people who began their careers at Danos. Some began working during the summer earning their way through college, some started out here and moved up to leadership roles internally or elsewhere, some worked at Danos only to be hired on with the customer they were actually working for all those years and in some cases, there are even a few customers who ve retired and then come to work for Danos. However you slice it, a good organization exchanges honest feedback, develops and mentors individuals achieving the goals of both.