Sealevel Construction

Baker Gulf Coast Industrial

Who did we visit?
Periodically, PDCA drops-in on members around the U.S. to meet the great people who make up this organization and say thank you for supporting the driven pile industry. During a recent visit to Louisiana, we were fortunate to meet several representatives of member companies throughout the New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Thibodaux areas, such as the teams at Sealevel Construction in Thibodeaux, Baker GCI in Prairieville, Gary and J.J. at MREC, Inc. in Norco, a couple of the techs at Darkhorse Industries in Port Allen, Chad Held at Eustis Engineering and Jason Engen and Mike Juneau at Premier Geotech & Testing in Baton Rouge, also paused to meet us for a couple minutes. In addition to the member offices, shops, yards, and/or trucks (in Chad's case) shown on this page, we also visited the following member offices: APC Construction, Boh Bros. Construction, Co, Group Contractors, Bottom Line Equipment, Meever USA, Ardaman and Associates, GeoEngineers, and Terracon.

Mississippi River Equipment Co.	Darkhorse Industries
Eustis Engineering	Premier Geotech and Testing

 

It can be hard to find people in their offices when we stop in, unannounced. After we missed him at Boh Bros. Construction, we saw Tony Sepulvado later in the week at the Gulf Coast Chapter Clay Shoot, for which he serves as VP. Also at the Chapter event, we caught Courtney Stricklin from new member Omega Foundations. Ronnie Hoefeld at Meever USA wasn't available when we stopped at his office, but we were pleased to see him at Clay Shoot where he was on the team that finished in third place.

And what did we find?
Among some of our unique findings in Louisiana member offices was a trophy built using the 430 lb. black bear that Patriot Deep Foundations Pres. Kevin Gourgues harvested in Canada in 2022. Despite the 'Do Not Touch' sign that was on the display, he did let us feel the magnificent coat the animal had worn for the Canadian winter.

Moving on, we met Jessica Lambert at Beard Construction who showed off a wonderful piece of baseball memorabilia. It was a mounted section of a game program of then LSU baseball standout Alex Bregman, in action on the famed ballfield, with a Beard Construction banner hanging on the outfield wall behind him. Since those photos were taken, Bregman has gone on to be a two-time World Series champion with his fellow Houston Astros, and Beard has recently become a newly minted PDCA member!

Later, we were escorted past an impressive trophy case while visiting Cajun Industries. Since it was too full and too large to share a complete photo here, we zoomed in on a couple of the trophies that stood out to us; they were PDCA Project of the Year awards from previous years. They tell us that we can expect to see more trophy-worthy projects from their work in future competitions.

Finally, we were highly impressed when visiting J.J. Waguespack at Mississippi River Equipment Co. in Norco, LA. While he proudly told us that he still uses his pager (and he showed it to us) he also had large totes full of high-tech timing equipment used for competitive marathons. J.J. has a true passion for participating in and organizing duathlons and other racing events. He stood next to several past awards that were given out at the Pelicanman duathlon event that he organized for several years in the New Orleans area.

Kevin Gourgues, Patriot Deep Foundations	Jessica Lambert, Beard Construction
Cajun Industries	J.J. Waguespack, MREC, Inc.

And if you've ever been to Louisiana, you know that the entire state takes pride in the multiple National Championship trophies that teams from Louisiana State University have earned through the years; remember the 2023 Women's Basketball? Or 2023 Baseball? While driving around Baton Rouge, we took a wrong turn and stumbled into a facility where we got to see the prized 'Natty's' that LSU football teams have brought back home in its storied history. With that said, happy College Football Season, we hope our team, er, YOUR team brings one home this year!