ENB #121 - Anyone can be an employee, but it takes courage to be an industry thought leader. We talk with Keith Steltar about energy, social crisis, founding fathers, and leadership in the home.
Keith Stelter, VP of Sales and Marketing at 423 Mechanical stopped by the Energy News Beat podcast. I have enjoyed watching and reading Keith’s posts on LinkedIn and enjoyed his balance of industry knowledge and leadership in life.
Personally, I have been dealing with family issues and have been under tremendous stress, and jumped on one of Keith’s live LinkedIn sessions and heard a wonderful testimony from his guest about survival, his belief in God, and how important it is to be an example. You do not know who or when your comments, actions, and influencer posts will positively affect people.
In this episode, we cover life in the Permian, the United States’ founding fathers and their fight for religious freedom, and of course oil and gas.
Please follow Keith on his LinkedIn account HERE: Also sign up and watch his live events.
Thank you Keith for stopping by the Energy News Beat podcast. I had an absolute blast, and your personal leadership on your show meant a lot. – Stu
Time Stamps
00:00 – Intro
01:31 – Talks about Podcast or Live Linkeln event as well as Youtube that Keith Stellar had with Brandon Willis
06:02 – I think the number one problem we have in this country is the dads are not in the house.
06:51 – Our Founding Fathers were here for a reason, and that was for the freedom of religion
(Declaration of Independence)
08:16 – What brought you to from Canada to here, Keith?
10:08 – What do you do in West Texas?
12:13 – As an EMP side of things, are you going to the rigs before they get there and bringing the pipe to the main midstream lines?
13:27 – After the frack crews and all that, what are some trends that you’re seeing? How’s that holding up on your end of the stick?
15:57 – What are your thoughts on the Permian area?
18:48 – You also have a workout Wednesday. What’s that about?
21:41 – Talks about Ohio Train Wreck that Matt Coday from Oil and Gas Association did to help people in Ohio
22:55 – What’s coming around the corner for 24:22 – Keith in the next few months?
Talks about JP and cutting Hair
27:42 – How do people get a hold of you, Keith?
28:35 – Outro
Full Automated Transcript Below – We disavow any mistakes unless they make us smarter or better looking.
Stuart Turley [00:00:05] Hey, Everybody, Welcome to the Energy News Beat Podcast. My name’s Stuart Turley, President and CEO of the Sandstone Group. Everybody knows I love to visit with any energy experts and I mean, today is absolutely no exception.
Stuart Turley [00:00:22] Today I have the Keith Steller, and he is a LinkedIn live guy and I’ll have to give you just a little bit of background here. Ethan, I have. This is our first time really talking face to face on Zoom. Ethan I were also on the advisory board for the Oil and Gas Workers Association with Matt Coday, and we love them they are actually great we love being on that. And we have I think we have 200 and some odd 60 joint LinkedIn connections together. Welcome, Keith and I can’t wait to hear about what’s going on.
Keith Steller [00:01:10] Thanks for having me, Stu. I really appreciate it, Excited to be here. It’s been a while since I’ve been on somebody else’s show, so I’m looking forward to having a chance just to relax and not have to lead the way so I know what you’re going through.
Stuart Turley [00:01:25] Yeah, We just have so much fun. It’s pathetic. But when we sit back and take a look, I have to give a shout-out to you because your podcast or live LinkedIn event, you have it on LinkedIn as well as YouTube it was phenomenal this week. You want to tell us a little bit about that because I needed to hear what Brandon was saying.
Keith Steller [00:01:51] So it actually kind of goes back a little bit before the guest was on, I was actually having a meeting with the CEO of Hibernia, John Blevins, and we were just talking back and forth or LinkedIn guys, and he likes posting about, you know, certain scriptures and he expresses his faith, you know, quite openly.
Keith Steller [00:02:09] And I like to shout out God and give thanks there I did a nice little post of thanking God, send me my wife and where I met the other day, and we were just discussing, you know, why don’t more people do that? Like we know a lot of people kind of feel the same way. And John, you know, when he posts, he gets messages saying, you know, I wish I could do the same thing. So we decided we’re going to bring him on the show and discuss oil, God and West Texas. It was going to be a nice little chat.
Keith Steller [00:02:37] And then he had to cancel just a week before the event we had like 300 people signed up, unfortunately, and he couldn’t give me any details. But I had heard rumors that they his company might be for sale. So I basically texted him and I was like, cause this family or so there’s something else involved. And he just kind of gave me a nice thumbs up and no answer one way or another.
Keith Steller [00:03:03] And sure enough, I found a replacement for him a great guy named Brandon Willis was planning on bringing him on the show in July or August to talk about construction. And, well, we decided, okay, you know, let’s stick with we were originally going to talk about God. And Brandon’s a guy of faith, too, so let’s stick to that second construction in God and or your faith or however we wanted to express it, didn’t want to, you know, just wanted to be open about it. Right.
Keith Steller [00:03:34] And so that Tuesday came also the announcement for Hibernia John Blevins Nope, they got sold for a few billion dollars, so graduate to him and then a great well, you know, Brandon without missing a beat filled in and you know, we talked for a few different subjects oil and gas West Texas for about I think 40 minutes within the last I heard he has 35 minutes was, you know, he had a great story about how he was about sick, you know, great in shape, guy here’s a guy six one £235 and get sick to the point where he’s down £138, about to die.
Keith Steller [00:04:13] Doing the power of prayer and a few other things, working with his community, his father, their church, you know, he gets through it all and now is is doing well and he’s working for ExxonMobil he’s their construction manager up there and we’re we’re kind of working together.
Keith Steller [00:04:30] So it was a show kind of a lot of you know, we wanted to talk about construction. We wanted to make sure, you know, that it’s okay to you know, this is a project, in my opinion, the oil and gas industry is a pretty conservative industry so this shouldn’t really be any fear of talking like that.
Keith Steller [00:04:47] And I think as a society, we’re kind of gotten away from it I noticed when I came from Canada and when I came down in 2006, I noticed people didn’t really talk about that. It was very taboo politics and religion.
Keith Steller [00:05:01] And in Canada, everybody always that’s what they wanted to at least at that time, you know, we weren’t scared to offend anybody. And I think we’re in some of the messes we are today because we didn’t have some discussions and some people I don’t know, maybe not, you know, too afraid to be offended and some are just not in the know.
Stuart Turley [00:05:21] I’ll tell you what, I you just hit me about the eyes and face on that one a shovel to the forehead, because I don’t do it nearly as much as I should. And, you know, in the past, I’d help the homeless and do all those kind of things.
Stuart Turley [00:05:34] But with the things that are going on in our country right now, I love the oil patch. I love the energy area where you go out to a rig. And I mean, the guys are about as cool as it gets. I mean, they’re in the doghouse they’re working hard they are salt of the earth people. And that’s what this country needs is dads. I think the number one problem we have in this country is the dads are not in the house.
Keith Steller [00:06:08] Well, at least not setting a good example you know what I mean? Like they’re at work and my dad was away, but I always kind of knew Dad was going to be there, you know, when he really needed to be and he set an example of working hard.
Keith Steller [00:06:24] And, you know, men just this country have kind of abdicated, maybe not, you know, willingly like some people, just too many people have said, we don’t really need you like, okay. And now it’s kind of gotten to the point where, okay, turns out, you know, everybody does kind of have a little bit of a role to play. And everything was kind of set up and working well for hundreds of years, kind of for a reason.
Stuart Turley [00:06:49] Right. And, you know, that’s our founding fathers were here for a reason, and that was for the freedom of religion. And, you know, you sit back, know that for somebody to write the Declaration of Independence and, you know, everything else, I Keith, I could have never written anything that smart. I mean.
Keith Steller [00:07:14] When you go back, they were very young, Like these guys were not 50-year-old men writing this. It was very most of them were in their twenties. And, you know, the resources that we take for granted were not there and the foresight that they showed.
Keith Steller [00:07:31] So, you know, as an immigrant, I’ve been a citizen for about two and a half years now. Reason is just as America truly is the greatest country in the world when you think there are 193 countries. And you think of, well, who really you know, one World War 2 put a man on the moon, the microchip, you know, manufactured the automobile mass, you know, really explored energy, you know, oil and gas.
Keith Steller [00:07:58] Now, you’d think that’d be spread out over, you know, all those countries and it really is not to say that there hasn’t been contributions throughout the world there is. But the fact that America takes such a leadership role in so many areas is just a mind boggling fact.
Stuart Turley [00:08:15] It is what brought you to from Canada to here, Keith, because I love Canada.
Keith Steller [00:08:21] So I always grew up. I loved football actually more than hockey. So and the cold isn’t all that fun. And so I always kind of, you know, watch a few American movies and you have this picture in your mind, I wanted to get to get to Texas and just, you know, got to Texas met my wife. She’s from Cleveland, Texas, shout-out to my wife there. And so that kind of all worked out for the best and still working out here in West Texas, which is even better part of Texas, in my opinion. But that’s just me.
Stuart Turley [00:09:00] So if you’re in the Midland Odessa, you’re in the Odessa section, is that correct?
Keith Steller [00:09:04] Yes, sir.
Stuart Turley [00:09:06] I got to I love West Texas. Right now. I’m sitting in Abilene, so it’s not quite West Texas, but we’re West Texas wannabees right now.
Keith Steller [00:09:16] You’re you’re West Texas it’s the people are really like especially during COVID. This, my kids, didn’t have to wear masks during COVID. They got to go to school they played with their friends. It there wasn’t a big panic people looked at this and if you had questions, you weren’t the devil for asking them you know, it really was very level-headed. And I’ll always remember that like like my kids are not behind in school at all just because they were in West Texas and I will always remember and be grateful for that.
Stuart Turley [00:09:51] Oh, yeah, there’s so much across the country that have had setbacks and can’t read. I was watching the news I think yesterday they had so many people Fs that can’t even read or anything else. What do you do in in West Texas? Everybody else is in, you know, oil and gas and the traffic is horrible in Midland in that area.
Keith Steller [00:10:19] That area to Houston. It’s beautiful compared to Houston or Dallas. So I don’t mind the traffic here, but so I was a wireline guy for over 20 years. I worked for mainly Schlumberger and Weatherford. But during COVID, when all that shut everything down, I found myself looking for a job.
Keith Steller [00:10:40] I became one of these LinkedIn guys however, that happened, you know, it just kind of happened,.
Stuart Turley [00:10:46] Right
Keith Steller [00:10:47] I wanted to make my own opportunity and just didn’t want to wait for the phone ring. So I took a few chances and for whatever reason it turned out. And now I’m actually no longer really in the upstream I’m in the midstream, kind of.
Stuart Turley [00:11:00] Nice.
Keith Steller [00:11:01] Still have upstream kind of work in construction. So I worked for a company for one three mechanical and we do construction, steel fabrication maintenance. So we’ll build, you know, a pipeline will that will clear, it will assemble, it will build the meter runs, the launches, receivers will build your Nest WD will send guys out to help you assemble your site. We got welders from, you know, skids to platform stairs.
Stuart Turley [00:11:35] Nice! thats critical
Keith Steller [00:11:37] They started up in North Dakota, a great guy, Harold Reimer, and he’s the one that brought me on. And they didn’t have any kind of real president that done a couple of little jobs previous in the Permian.
Stuart Turley [00:11:52] Right.
Keith Steller [00:11:53] But no, no real presence. Now, we got a shop in south of Dallas booth and just trying to grow it from here it’s still pretty early on five months into this, but we’ve done some work and been able to build some pretty big tent plans at this point.
Stuart Turley [00:12:10] Are you looking to ah, so just as an EMP side of things, are you going to the rigs before they get there and bringing the pipe to the main midstream lines or so.
Keith Steller [00:12:23] We could do the Earth work to build a pad site, you know, for the MP drill, you know, so you need that all. And I tweeted out flatten like we can do that. And then once you’ve drilled it and completed it and you have your well there.
Keith Steller [00:12:39] If you need a battery or something after that, where were the guys who called up, pipe it all up and rolled it together and make the nice little concrete pad or burns or containment and the gathering lines? We can we can set that all up. So yeah, we’re kind of all parts of the life of it. But I would say predominantly, you know, once the wells completed, is this where we kind of shine a little bit more
Stuart Turley [00:13:05] Oh, nice. So, you know, after the frack crews and all that, what are some trends that you’re seeing? Because over the last couple of years, the costs have gone through the roof for metal. You. Know the supply chain. How’s that holding up on your end of the stick?
Keith Steller [00:13:26] No, it fluctuates, in my opinion. Like there was a time last year where everything steel was going through the roof and then it came back right in, back down. Availability is big depends, you know, especially items I think are still hard to find.
Keith Steller [00:13:44] However, I believe, you know, your basic stuff is is caught up to a certain extent and if you look hard enough and there’s enough competition out there like you can, that’s my feelings on it,.
Stuart Turley [00:13:56] Right
Keith Steller [00:13:56] It’s caught up and activity is dipping a little bit as far as on the drilling side, only because the the rigs are drilling so fast now that you don’t need as many drilling rigs. Right. The footage that they’re right there, drilling, I think is in excess of 2014 a great guy to talk about that is David Gibson.
Stuart Turley [00:14:22] Yup.
Keith Steller [00:14:22] But at the same time, okay the footage that the drilling rigs, you don’t need as many drilling rigs, but you still need the facilities. You still need the gathering lines for all those sites and, you know, capacity is still a pretty big issue in that Permian I capacities.
Stuart Turley [00:14:39] For the takeaways.
Keith Steller [00:14:41] For all the takeaways, especially gas, a little bit more up to date on the gas part. What they you know, there was no work pretty much done during 2020 and that said a lot of capacity that so. A lot of it is getting done now. And, you know, low gas prices is kind of maybe hindering on the gas side, but natural gas. But I think there’s so much catch up to do from before. I think that’ll stay a little steady. Oil is definitely, you know, thriving in a lot of places, so.
Stuart Turley [00:15:14] Right. What do you see, Keith, as the bids? Because you’re right in the middle of all this you’re going to be in the middle of the bids. The NPR operators out there and I’m assuming you were with the big boys and the medium boys. And you you don’t care if they got a po, you’ll you’ll go to work with them, right?
Stuart Turley [00:15:34] So how do you feel that it’s going right now in the Permian? Do you feel that there? Because everything I’m reading the Permian is is here to stay and the new technology and everything else you hear, one side of it is saying that all the good rock is taken and gone. Then you hear other guys saying it’s going to be here forever. What are your thoughts on Permian area?
Keith Steller [00:16:01] I think it’ll continue for a long time Coming right now, I think it’s steady. It’s not exactly booming. And with, you know, some of the acquisitions, there’s still obviously acreage to be recovered. Right. I. As a guy who was in the Barnett years and years ago.
Keith Steller [00:16:21] I saw a few seismic surveys while they would do seismic while they were doing fracs and I’ll tell you something, the way they were doing the fracs and that to me. I would have to see some data the way they do it there’s still lots of stuff that can’t be completed.
Keith Steller [00:16:39] Because the back end, they do way too long of sections and they leave so much behind. They try and break the clusters down with only a couple of holes here and a couple of holes. But it’s the first two clusters that always take the water and then the last ones barely take anything. Like I’ve watched the seismic, watched it move, and it’s just like, oh, okay. Like you didn’t kind of get it all the way, in my opinion.
Keith Steller [00:17:06] Now, I haven’t seen a seismic in a long time. I could be completely off base they can have it all dialed in where they’re draining as fast as it can be. But my feeling is there’s it’s got a long way to go. Yeah.
Stuart Turley [00:17:21] I’ll tell you, you know, when you sit back and look at that new technology or you look at going back and reworking old wells, that seems like it’d be a heck of a lot cheaper to go back in and try to re muscle in rework a Well, is that effort.
Keith Steller [00:17:35] Definitely I think that’s a heck of a plan for some of these guys maybe and you don’t need the up front drilling costs and I think there’s so much we could do without, you know, these wells that have already been drilled, even geothermal like opportunities and stuff to. Right?
Keith Steller [00:17:53] What’s the wells already drilled that’s usually the biggest cost for Geothermal opportunities. And I’m not against green or other energies. You know, I’m an oil and gas guy but if the population is growing, we need more energy, not less of it. Yeah, So why not?
Stuart Turley [00:18:10] I like the way you think. Because we need all the energy we can get. I don’t care if it’s wind, solar, nuclear, oil and gas. Let’s all get along together. But in order to be sustainable, you have to survive without tax credits.
Keith Steller [00:18:26] I agree.
Stuart Turley [00:18:27] So that kind of leaves it a little limited there.
Keith Steller [00:18:32] I think with enough need and enough ingenuity, anything can survive like this like I said, this is the poor man on the moon. Like, allow enough people time to figure it out we’ll figure out a way.
Stuart Turley [00:18:45] I like your positive attitude, man, now, you also have a workout Wednesday. What’s that about?
Keith Steller [00:18:52] So I know there’s lots of happy hours. There’s lots of different activities you can do Permian and lots of, like, any places. I’m getting older I all these drinks every night and that’s just wear me down. So I was like, Hey, let’s people work out you want to just get together and we can have a good workout we can barely lift any weight so you just it’s just an excuse to kind of get together.
Keith Steller [00:19:16] I used to train people, and it used to be it’s one of my hobbies, always just staying in shape. So I started this thing workout Wednesdays over in Odessa, and it’s just had a few people attend and it’s at times where nobody attends so but it works.
Keith Steller [00:19:31] I got a shout out Robert Gomez. He’s got a great running group over in Midland. On Thursdays you’ll get from 20 to 40 people showing up. So people definitely love running way more than they love lifting their weights.
Stuart Turley [00:19:42] But I am.
Keith Steller [00:19:44] It’s it was just an up and, you know, just something other than drinking all the time.
Stuart Turley [00:19:50] Well, you know, I respect that and I’ve always enjoyed watching your ear LinkedIn posts or anything else of work out Wednesdays. And it’s like, you know, I think I even comment at one time, like you’re looking a little peek it or something. I can’t remember. But it was, you know, your arms are about as big as my head. And it had.
Keith Steller [00:20:11] It’s just a regular, regular old guy. Yeah, I just like, work it out. I grew up on a farm. I’m a little stocky as my my wife likes to remind me, but I don’t know. I’m not giant by any means, so. But I appreciate you checking them out, man check it out the posts and it.
Keith Steller [00:20:29] You know, I tried. LinkedIn was really good to me. Like the one I’m probably most proud of is the Pay It Forward Fridays where I try and help, you know, people looking for jobs. You know, I got this platform. Why not raise the profile someone looking and it’s.
Stuart Turley [00:20:44] Right.
Keith Steller [00:20:45] It’s it’s hit and miss you know, sometimes a lot of people will support it. And then sometimes I guess people are busy or whatever. But a lot of people have found jobs that way. And, you know, anything I can do to help, you know, I I’ve been pretty blessed with with what’s happened to me. So I figured, why not?
Stuart Turley [00:21:01] You know, one of the cool things I was seeing, we were on a Zoom call this week with the Oil and Gas Workers Association, and I just got roped in by Matt Cody and I love him. He is a nut. Courses. You know, let’s not tell him that. Of course, he may see this.
Keith Steller [00:21:20] I mean, we should tell him that we just got to focus some of his energy sometimes very enthusiastic. I just yeah, I just don’t want him to attack you. You know, we’re trying to win people over here, so, you know.
Stuart Turley [00:21:32] You bad. And so he is absolutely. I love watching him either at the legislator or I was very, very thrilled to have him on when the Ohio train wreck happened and I mean, he ran out there delivering goods from the oilfield.
Stuart Turley [00:21:57] I mean, that was a lot of fun and it’s despicable. The folks up in Ohio are not getting treated well. But that shows the heart of the oilfield folks giving the supplies and having him run them up there.
Keith Steller [00:22:14] You know, we worked together on that and it was a great, great little initiative that proud that we were able to my family sense some money. You know, we wanted to help and it was great. I think they got two trips out of the thing. It wasn’t as much as I kind of had hoped sometimes. But I think any little bit, you know, help.
Stuart Turley [00:22:39] Those people are in a bad way for a long time so everything that they get is going to be important. Keith, what’s coming around the corner for you? And I want to ask you two things. First thing. What’s coming around the corner for you in the next few months?
Keith Steller [00:23:01] So do you plan on getting John Blevins back on the show? Here I am working with a few folks I’m hoping to have. You know, I’ve had some educational livestreams. We’ve done production. We’ve done leadership of had a great guy.
Keith Steller [00:23:17] You know, I’ve had a topgun instructor on with, you know, an NFL. And if former NFL lineman Marcus Ogden and some trainers to talk about leadership, that was actually pretty, pretty cool events. I’ve been pretty blessed.
Keith Steller [00:23:30] But John Blevins going to come on working on with some folks to come on and talk about crude oil marketing, like what is crude oil marketing right now? Come later this fall, I’ll be doing all the interviews at the Permian Basin International Oil Show.
Stuart Turley [00:23:48] Nice!
Keith Steller [00:23:49] The largest oil show in North America. So thanks for them. I did it two years ago, was up in the booth there, just kind of one person after another getting that on LinkedIn. We had a few live moments and when we got the Internet to work and it really was one of the first times, you know, I had done something like that. Sky high four kids were will hopefully attend that banquet again. Last year I donated my area. We raised a bunch of money for them on that.
Stuart Turley [00:24:17] So isn’t that cool? JP I love JP and I mean, you and JP were just going back and forth about your hair. I was like, Oh, then you got people like me with flesh for a a color. Here you guys are rock stars.
Keith Steller [00:24:34] Well, Petra Reyes shout out to her she her goal is to raise $40,000 to cut her hair. She’s kind of a somewhat of a celebrity in this little area. So I think she can do it. She’s very well connected. Sales so.
Stuart Turley [00:24:50] Bunch you had a bunch of money. How much was your haircut?
Keith Steller [00:24:54] Mine was 13,000 JP’s was just under 13 and a few others, I think total, we raised 35,000.
Stuart Turley [00:25:05] Nice.
Keith Steller [00:25:05] Means all of us that did it. So yeah.
Stuart Turley [00:25:06] That is cool. So you sold more or you got more income than JP? That night.
Keith Steller [00:25:12] So I consider the stopping point once we cut our hair because that’s when I stopped asking people for money. At that point I was leading. However, now there’s the the controversy with JP. The next day he kept getting some donations because he offered to shave his beard or something so that he ended officially past me the next day. But I didn’t. I didn’t stop at then. But if you go back to the video at the bank, which the official person who was raised the most and had the.
Stuart Turley [00:25:44] That was you.
Keith Steller [00:25:45] And the one spot was was me. So you can like.
Stuart Turley [00:25:49] I need to have both of you on here so we can have a slugfest. And I get so tickled that I’ll tell you one real quick thing on JP. How cool is that? He’s taken the crew where it is now and have them cool. I am so happy for him and his little family. It is so fun to see what he’s doing for the oil and gas industry. That is just cool.
Keith Steller [00:26:20] And it’s it’s educating people about networking, which to me, if I could go back and tell my younger self, you know one thing, it would be a network, more like I was operations guy. I was always busy. I was just like, Oh, I don’t have time to do that. I just want to get home, the family or something. Not to say that family’s not the most important, but I should have taken a few times at lunch and a few other know times and went and expanded my network.
Keith Steller [00:26:46] Now, LinkedIn’s helped me kind of accelerate. You know, I’ve probably done way more than, you know, I probably could have normally without it so thankful for that. But yeah, no, he he’s done a great job getting out there, getting people together in a very positive light.
Stuart Turley [00:27:05] I’ll tell you what. We’ve got about two more minutes, and I just really appreciate you and your thought leadership and I’ve been a stalker watching everything you got going on, looking at your stuff and everything else.
Stuart Turley [00:27:20] So congrats to you and you don’t realize what impact you have on being positive, on being the weightlifter and all those kind of things. So I’m looking forward to visit with you again in the future and again, how to come.
Keith Steller [00:27:39] Be back any time this was great.
Stuart Turley [00:27:42] How do people get a hold of you?
Keith Steller [00:27:44] So the easiest way is look me up. Keith Stelter on LinkedIn. You know, that’s basically the easiest. You know, giving out my phone number here or my email address, like let’s start with LinkedIn. Go from there and you know, you’ll get me.
Keith Steller [00:28:02] You’re not going to have to wait four days for a response if you’ve got some, you know, legitimate contact here. I’m on it constantly. So I’m the first one that pops up. There are other key smelters on there, but in dance API, SDL. TR No, there’s only one in West Texas that I know of.
Stuart Turley [00:28:23] Sounds Great
Keith Steller [00:28:24] That that’s usually the best way to find me and reach out and I’d love to connect with anybody out there wants to connect with me.
Stuart Turley [00:28:31] Sounds great, Thank you so much for your time.
Keith Steller [00:28:35] No problem sir any time.