We hope you had a chance to read our last employee spotlight which can be found here. It was great insight into Greg Edward’s life working for Onward Consulting. As we mentioned in that blog, we want to continue these employee spotlights and introduce more of our hard-working HSE advisors and other offshore employees at Onward. Not only does this showcase our working culture here at Onward, but it showcases real life offshore experiences in the Gulf of Mexico and beyond of individuals ensuring all required and necessary procedures are carried out and clients are left feeling satisfied.
Our second employee we want to introduce to you today is Brandon Smith. Brandon started working with us here at Onward in September of 2019 and is currently contracted with Talos as an HSE Advisor and said to us that he is very fortunate to fulfill with Talos since late April 2020. He has been working in the Oil and Gas Industry since September 2014 and throughout this time has gained invaluable experience in both on and offshore work. His favorite part about this industry is “the people” and the teamworking culture that exists across the Oil and Gas Industry. Brandon is a big reader but not as much as he loves to write books as well. He spends most of his time at the ranch and cannot go without picking up his guitar and writing a couple of songs.
The first question we asked him about his work and life at Onward was about his positive success stories. Brandon had a multitude of stories to tell us but his main one was all about how he managed to assimilate himself with a new crew on a job with a client,
“The crew I was working with had come across initially as very standoffish, resistant to suggestion, etc. I trusted my conviction and foresight to effect a positive change not only with their behavior on deck but also ultimately gone back to revise some of their procedures.”
This is behavior that we know all our advisors embody to ensure that in each new job, they create a collaborative culture that fosters positive change. A key question that we asked Brandon next was all about what makes Onward unique, and this was his response,
“Onward made a particular set of sacrifices over the past year or so to ensure that they not only could remain competitive but that they could keep a roster of consultants employed through the negative industry impacts of the pandemic. Additionally, at least in my case, those at the helm helped me out greatly at the outset of my employment regarding the requisite training and setting me up for the best chance of success right away.”
Brandon’s words were both kind and inspiring. Here at Onward, we ensure that every employee is given as much opportunity to cross train and seize new opportunities because we believe through this type of employer employee relationship, we can foster innovation and a highly skilled workforce that can solve any problem. This leads us to our final serious question which was all about what piece of advice would Brandon give to a new hire at Onward? Luckily, Brandon gave us a few,
“Be knowledgeable but not overbearing. Make sure that you never stop learning (this also applies to life outside of work). And perhaps the least tangible of all, be the light. Most of the people you work with have families, children… I can only imagine what that may emotionally involve with having to leave for weeks at a time. Be the light.”
This rounds off the end of our employee spotlight with Brandon Smith, our HSE Advisor. We hope you enjoyed reading this one and got another wonderful insight into what it means working for Onward and in the Oil and Gas Industry. If this read gave you an interest in a career with us make sure to contact us from our careers page here.
