When Brent Nimeck and Larry Kristof founded Lexington Energy Services Ltd., they wanted the best employees in the industry.

When he started Lexington Energy Services (LES) Ltd. in 2005 as an oilfield service company, President, COO and co-founder Brent Nimeck knew he had to fill his staff with some of the best and brightest the industry had to offer.

"In my private business, we had good people that wanted more than a paycheck," Nimeck says. "So by going public, we were able to offer employees shares."

Nimeck says 80 percent of LES's senior staff and management are invested in the company, which he says is a sign of his employees' commitment to the technology and management philosophies of the company. "This brought an element of retention to the company," Nimeck adds. "When you steal people [from competitors] just for a higher wage, it makes it difficult. But now these people have a career."

LES manufactures oilfield service equipment and offers drilling and coring services through its subsidiary, Lexcore Services Inc., throughout Alberta's oil sands region. LES's Calgary, Alberta, headquarters includes a 15,000-square-foot manufacturing and fabrication facility. LES also owns 8.6 acres in Brooks, Alberta, where it is building another facility with 10,000 square feet of manufacturing space and 2,000 square feet of office space.

Nimeck and President/CEO Larry Kristof founded LES in 2005 after meeting just a year-and-a-half earlier. Nimeck says Kristof wanted to be involved with a public company from the ground up.

Nimeck had the perfect situation in place. At age 29, he has been in the industry for 15 years and already owned Southern Well Testing, which he purchased in 2005.

Keeping Busy
LES is making a splash in the industry with its mobile nitrogen units, according to Nimeck, who developed the systems before and during his time with LES. These can be easily transported to a site to generate a continuous supply of nitrogen on location without the additional costs associated with other liquid nitrogen systems.

With this new technology in tow, Nimeck says LES has been plenty busy over the course of its short history. "Our productivity levels are as high as they can be," Nimeck adds. "We refused 15 jobs a week, but we are not refusing any this year. We have enough to maintain full capacity for our fleet. After a year of correction, stronger, better-managed companies will prevail."

Internal Training
When it comes time for hiring, Nimeck says LES prefers to hire individuals with a good work ethic and minimal experience who are looking to grow with a new company.

"We want good people because we can train them to do oil patches; that is the easy part of our job," Niemeck says. "It does help if they have a combination [of a good work ethic and experience]. But there are so many poorly run companies, sometimes you get damaged goods." Most of LES's training is performed on site. But Nimeck says the company would like to initiate training and career development programs as part of its future growth.

Nimeck says he understands that as the employees continue to grow with the company, LES will only stand to benefit. "We do not want to be biggest oil service company in the world; we just want to be better at what we do," Nimeck says. "A lot of opportunities will present themselves as managers and directors continue to grow."