Lucas started T and D’s Lube Doctors in 2004, servicing pumping units and equipment in the field as a sole proprietor. He did this as a side project while employed full time with Frontier Field Services as an IE/operator. During this time, the business didn’t grow because Lucas did not pay his full attention. In 2006 Lucas took a job with Enterprise Field Service as a cross-functional plant, pipeline, and measurement technician. In 2012 Lucas left Enterprise Field Service, now known as Enterprise Products, to Kinder Morgan/El Paso Field Service as a Measurement technician. While employed, Lucas grew restless with wonder about what T and D’s could become. So, in April of 2014, he resigned from Kinder Morgan and started T and D’s full time. At first, T and D’s were only doing maintenance work, but Lucas wanted T and D’s to become more. In 2015 T and D’s became an LLC. Then 2015 hit, and oil went to 25/bbl. T and D’s was affected, so Lucas and His wife Jackie built a house to sell to get them and T and D’s through the downturn. Lucas then diversified T and D’s to his field knowledge of field operations and lunched plant, pipeline, and lease operating to the company’s portfolio. This was a big turning point for T and D’s as the company grew during the downtime. T and D’s is an S corporation now and currently has maintenance crews, plant, pipeline, lease operators, and rental equipment T and D’s is diversifying once again into Optical gas imagining.
Owner Background and Experience
Owner Lucas Dowdy started his oil and gas career right out of high school in 1999, working for a pipeline construction and roustabout company while taking night college classes. During employment with the pipeline construction company, Lucas applied to an intern program with Duke Energy to go to college at OSU for natural gas compression. He was awarded the internship with Duke, but Duke merged with Conoco Philips, and Conoco already had an intern going to the program. So, Lucas lost the internship because companies could only send 1 intern, and he lost his academic scholarships because he didn’t go to college the first semester out of high school. Lucas continued to work on the pipeline construction crews throwing skids, cleaning ditches, running pipe clamps, and operating heavy equipment. During his employment there, he filled in on roustabout crews building locations and doing various jobs. He worked his way up to a pipeline construction foreman and lease operator. From there, Lucas finished his associate degree in I&E and applied science. He then got hired on with Frontier Field services as an I&E/field operator. Lucas left Frontier to be a third-party mechanic for CSI. Things slowed down in the oil and gas industry while employed with CSI, and got hired on with Enterprise Products in 2006 as a cross-functional plant, pipeline, and measurement technician. He stayed with Enterprise for almost 7 years, and in 2012 he got hired on with Kinder Morgan/El Paso as a measurement technician. Then in 2014, Lucas started T and D’s Fulltime.
The Creation of T and Ds
T and D’s was born from a thought during the owner’s time working in the Wind Turbine Energy field. During his time with Enron Wind, Lucas noticed that the companies’ fleets lacked maintenance because they did long days and were far away from any civilization. So, he came up with the idea of service companies’ fleets in the field. Hence T and D’s Lube Doctors. As Lucas acquired clients servicing their fleets, he expanded to the oil and gas field servicing pumping units. The company started as T&D’s Lube Doctors as a sole proprietor in 2004. As a side hustle, T&D’s was busy but didn’t grow because the owner didn’t give the company his full attention. In April 2014, the owner decided to take T&D’s full time. Now that T&D’s was a full time, it was bad timing because the oil and gas field slowed way down in 2015, where oil hit 25/bbl. T&D’s survived because the owner diversified into his field knowledge background and added lease, pipeline, and plant operations to the company. This knowledge was a huge turning point for T&D’s, and the company grew during the downturn in the oil and gas industry.