Douglas Berkley
Business Dev. Rep. – Transportation & Oil Field Services Company
Publisher: Tri-State Shale Traveler

Unless you’ve lived or worked in the shale fields you have no idea how much the industry has done to lift up regional economies with shale opportunities.

I have had the opportunity to see many interesting things out here in the shale fields of Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia.  I’ve met a lot of interesting folks, too, and made a lot of new industry friends and folks in the communities where the jobs take us.  It’s a great experience that I would recommend to anyone wanting to truly learn about the industry and how the region feels about us and what it is we do.

But, I digress.  While meeting all these new people and seeing all these new sites, one wouldn’t think a voice out of your high school past (which was a few years ago in my case) would change your day and make you realize how much this shale phenomena is changing lives here in the region.

A few weeks ago, while in one of the numerous valleys of eastern Ohio, I noticed a voice mail waiting for me on my phone.  I didn’t have service in that valley, so the caller had left me a message obviously.  While listening to it, my head cocked to the side in surprise…it was a fellow named Joe Baumgardner.

Now I had known Joe from elementary school through high school, where we drifted apart to a degree.  It’s just how life and those high school things go  But we had been in the same homeroom all those years and were friends.  Mind you, we just had our 25th year high school reunion, so you can see it had been a LONG time since Joe and I had spoken!  I was really interested to hear why Joe was calling me, I knew it was industry related but not how.

Joe and I exchanged a few messages and emails and I found out he was on site many days at the Markwest facility in Cadiz…literally a quarter mile from my office.  We set a day to meet and Joe came over.

I learned Joe had been running his own business for several years named Joe Safety.  He had gone to college for the safety sciences and had a career in that industry for several years.  Over the last few years, Joe and I both saw the growth coming from the shale boom and we both decided to hop in full bore.  I have already written about my journey to this industry before, so let’s focus on Joe here.

He saw the boom coming, took a few chances on safety-related jobs in the Marcellus and now his small business employs seven full time employees and six safety contractors with quality, family sustaining shale jobs.  Joe and his staff work on site in the Marcellus and Utica now, covering the whole tri-state region.

At this point in time, Joe Safety has 50% of their business in the oil and gas industry, both in the form of providing onsite safety services at oil and gas sites, including new employee orientation, and also providing safety services, including training to other business that service oil and gas sites.  He expects more in the future from all the shale opportunities out there.

Although we took different routes, the shale boom has had a profound effect on both Joe and me. Taking advantage of shale opportunities allowed both of us to find our passion in life and, although the days can be crazy, we feel like this is fun versus “work” or a chore.  We’ve both seen jobs and growth come back to families in the area and we’re happy we can be a part of the story.  The shale boom is doing a lot of positive things in our country…who knew it could reunite old friends from grade school, too? 

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