TRAILBLAZERS
Sutherland agrees: “We provide value to each other.”
Before establishing their own companies, Kays and Sutherland
worked in the oil and gas industry for about eight years. The two
men met four years ago when they both were working for an oil
country tubular goods (OCTG) distributor in Houston, Texas.
“We’ve always gotten along well,” said Kays. “Back at the old
company, I used to sit across the desk from him… We got to be
buddies, talking back and forth all the time.”
It wasn’t long after they became friends that Kays left the business
to found his own firm in late 2013, and Sutherland followed
suit a short time later.
“We were basically just two young guys thinking we could
someday jump out and do this on our own. And that’s what happened,”
said Sutherland.
“Zack jumped out first and had some success in his first few
months, and he said, ‘Lewis, let’s go,’ so I jumped out as well,” said
Sutherland, who’s married and has an 11-year-old daughter and
newborn son at home. Kays got married this past September.
The two men chose to set up shop in a renovated house on
the west side of Houston. Kays has five people working for him on
the Trading Heritage International side, while Sutherland Pipe &
Supply has two employees.
“We have a neat little office here, a bunch of young guys who’ve
come together,” said Sutherland. “We just grind it out every day and
get the job done.”
OCTG materials
Trading Heritage International buys pipe from all over the country,
and much of it is sourced from surplus OCTG materials like steel
production casings used in oil wells.
According to Kays and Sutherland, OCTG materials can be
used in driven pile and micro-pile applications in foundation construction
and can actually test out at higher specs than structural
steel pipe.
“For the most part, all of the oil field specifications supersede
anything used in the construction industry,” said Sutherland.
Trading Heritage International does purchase structural piles
as well, and its inventory has grown 10 times in the few years since
the company was founded.
“We’ve been growing steadily. We went from having 300 tons
of inventory on the ground and now we stock around 33,000 tons,”
said Kays.
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