Danos builds to meet expanding staff, portfolio

Artist’s rendition of new Danos corporate headquarters at Highway 90 and Highway 24 in Gray, La.

Privately held Danos of Larose, La., is in full-fledged construction mode after completing what it described as “an incredible year.”

The personnel and growing construction services provider not only broke ground this year on a new corporate headquarters, but, in late January, was in the final stage of negotiations with the nearby Port of Iberia for the construction of what it says will be “a world class fabrication facility.” In addition, over the past year, the family-owned company organically added a scaffolding services division and, at the end of January, was working on finalizing two electronics-related acquisitions, as it moves to shed its long-held image as strictly a provider of personnel for the oil and gas industry.

“People know us as a provider of production-related labor, but we also have deep experience in the construction side of the business,” said Executive Vice President Eric Danos. “We’re just not as well known for it, but that is where we see our business growing substantially.”

“One of our strategies is to really build out our suite of services around our construction market space,” he said. “We see ourselves as project managers for construction-related services. Customers are asking us to integrate more services, so they have a single-point contact.”

Reflecting that strategy, Danos was in final talks with Port of Iberia officials, hoping to break ground later this summer on a 40-acre site that would house a new-generation fabrication plant. “Our plans are to build a world-class fabrication facility that supports our vision going forward,” said Eric Danos. “We looked at where the industry is going and saw a lot of exotics and requirements for high-pressure, high-intensity services for the deep water. We will have modularized fabrication (at the new facility), and we think it will be something that is not out there now.”

Also unique will be the new corporate headquarters, to be located in Gray, La., some 33 mi. from the firm’s long-time home base in Larose, which was straining to accommodate a continually growing staff. The new 60,000-sq-ft headquarters will have eventual capacity of 500, “which is what we’re envisioning as part of our 10-year plan,” said the namesake V.P. “We have 150 staff members now, and are looking at 250 over the next three to five years,” he said. “This will be an awesome facility, the likes of which does not exist in the South Louisiana area.”