About Us
Spill Plan Man Spill Plan Engineers Arkansas started when Travis was 18 years old working in southern Oklahoma in the oil field for Noble Energy, formerly called Samedan.
As a roustabout wrenching together combination hook ups at well heads, laying fiberglass pipelines, working on saltwater injection pumps, and from time to time there was a need to clean up tank batteries to prepare for an EPA inspection. Some tank batteries were much more needy of an improvement than others. Sometimes we cleaned them up by-hand and sometimes we had the luxury of a backhoe. I don’t think I knew at the time it was the (EPA) coming to do the Spill Plan Engineers Arkansas inspection. I just knew that I had to get the place cleaned up.
Later I got a chemical engineering degree and went to work inside of a 1200-acre facility in Longview, Texas with over 2,000 employees. That facility had just transitioned the year before from being the 2nd largest chemical division of Eastman Kodak, the camera company, to simply Eastman Chemical.
I started as a co-op student from Oklahoma State University. I was impressed that they would “fly me in and pay for a hotel room” so that I could visit the facility. I was a co-op student three times in Texas and once at the Eastman headquarters site in Kingsport, Tennessee with approximately 10,000 employees.
I worked from 1994 to 1997 as a co-op student and then full-time from 1997 to 2007. Most of that work was research and development and learning how to operate Spill Plan Engineers Arkansas processes safely. Then Westlake purchased the polyethylene division from Eastman chemical and 400 employees were transitioned to the new company. I decided to move back to Oklahoma with our two newly adopted kids to be closer to grandparents.
I got a job at a fast-growing corrosion inspection and monitoring company that immediately sold out to SGS, an 80,000 person company from Switzerland. In the process, I got to travel internationally, and we adopted three more children. For the first time ever I began to learn what contractors had to go through to be qualified to work in big facilities operated by companies like Eastman, British Petroleum, ExxonMobil, etc.
Learning how to get contracts approved with specific drug and alcohol policies, safety procedures, etc. would be invaluable when 7 years later, I went out on my own. I began to get American Petroleum Institute certifications in the Spill Plan Engineers Arkansas Inspection industry and signed up to take the NCEES professional engineering exam (PE exam). Two or three times from 2004 to 2007 I had attempted to study thinking I would sign up for the exam once I felt comfortable. Then I realized, no test I had ever had in school worked that way. So I signed up for the exam and knew when they set the date I would either be ready or not. I sold my car and commuted to work for several months because all I did was study nights and weekends. My bosses were nice enough to let me take off an entire week before the exam, knowing that my passing of the PE exam would benefit the company.
I did not see multi-state licensure being the path I would take but my father pressured me to get started and now I am on my way to getting an engineering license in each of the continental 48 states and possibly all 50. I’ve heard of one other engineer that has all 50 states that does Spill Plan Engineers Arkansas spill plans. That’s impressive to me!
When I finally decided to go out on my own and had I inherited a filing cabinet of Spill Plans from Richard Knoblock, a WWII pilot from Oklahoma. Before this I knew nothing about SPCC plans. When I turned in my resignation at the corrosion monitoring company they asked me to stay 3 more months so that I could help them give a presentation to Chevron in Houston. Without knowing the business, I went into financial freefall until we caught wind in our sails through word-of-mouth advertising. I would have failed in that time if Fred Storer, PE had not bent over backwards to help me 7 days per week and if I had not been able to meet the walking encyclopedia of SPCC, John Carroll III.
Virtually all my clients have become long-term relationships. I’ve been on 55 EPA inspections in the field and only two times did a client get fined because they failed to complete the work we described in the inspection preparation action list. Fifty three (53) successful audits out of 55 is a batting average of 0.964! What started in the pastures of Osage County, Oklahoma, has now become virtually nationwide. Instead of just earthen berms we’ve been involved with concrete, asphalt, steel, and lined containment systems. Some work is in dry areas, other times we’re in maritime facilities and have to present our transportation worker identification card (TWIC) to enter.
I’ve measured the topography with many types of technology and designed many containment sharing systems for integrated tank terminals. There was a spill north of San Francisco years ago where product didn’t top the berm, it went 8 feet down and then out to the bay. A company from Southern California recommended a $5 million clay liner 2 feet thick, however it was too difficult to compact clay it under all the pipes that travelled close to the ground. The client went with our Spill Plan Engineers Arkansas recommendation to install a polyurea liner for about $1.7 million and created a sealed barrier for the floor, sides, and all floor penetrations (i.e., piping, concrete light pole pedestals, etc.).
We will drop everything we’re doing to focus on any client that has been notified of an EPA inspection. We’ve turned around brand new SPCC plans in 12 hours, and we can do technical amendments much faster. After 10 years of experience, I’ve been asked to give presentations at tank and terminal conferences. At the corrosion monitoring company, failure was defined as the primary containment (i.e., the tank) leaking. In the SPCC world, failure is the spill getting outside of the berm (i.e., secondary containment) around the tank or bulk storage container.
Twenty (20) percent of all tanks over these many years have not been found to be adequately protected in that the berms can’t hold the largest tank plus the local 25 year / 24-hour statistical rain event. This is true for small and large companies alike. Years ago I heard the fire chief at America’s largest tank farm say that 30% of the time a tank fire will be associated with lightning; therefore, it’s probable that a leak will occur during a rain storm. Spill Plan Man’s goal in life is to be ready for an incident, but pray it never happens.