Comprehensive three-day Wellhead 101 course critical to upholding field service excellence standard across North America
In three days Kyle Blakeman gained a better understanding of wellheads than he did in his previous six months at another pressure control company.
The recently hired Stream-Flo service technician operating out of our Fort McMurray, Alberta branch earned that enhanced understanding after completing the comprehensive three-day Wellhead 101 course put on by Stream-Flo’s training department in Edmonton.
“I thoroughly enjoyed myself,” said Blakeman of the in-depth course which blends classroom with hands-on training. “It raised my confidence level up a lot for when I went back into the field.”
Likewise, Cooper Allan from our Midland, Texas shop found himself gaining a fuller grasp and three-dimensional picture of his duties following three days at our Derrington training facility in Houston, where he received the same Wellhead 101 course.
“For me it was just a round thing, round hole that you’re just putting in and I just didn’t really understand where everything went,” said Allan of his brief time in the field before attending the class. “But after I went through Wellhead 101, I was able to understand where it’s setting in the casing head or where it’s setting in the wellhead, I understand now that everything stacks on top of each other versus goes in and slides inside of each other, it was just really good for me.”
Cooper Allan, middle, conducts lubricator training during the Lubricator School he took at the Stream-Flo Derrington training facility in Houston, Texas. Stream-Flo USA Field Service Technical Trainer Israel Arzola, left, keeps a watchful eye over Allan during the procedure while Stream-Flo Service Technician Deon Bass stands to the right. (Ryan Santos)
‘Roll up your sleeves and work with them’
Helping make things clearer for Allan was Stream-Flo USA Field Service Technical Trainer Israel Arzola, one of the people leading the charge for our learning efforts in the United States.
Fresh from the field before joining us as a technical trainer, Arzola brings a wealth of knowledge and down-to-earth disposition when teaching new service techs how to perform at a high level in the field.
His ability to connect with the new technicians is a big reason for his effectiveness as a trainer, and he does it the hands-on way.
“Just roll up your sleeves and work with them,” said Arzola of how he builds trust and camaraderie with new techs.
It’s something Arzola learned and appreciated early on in his days in the patch.
“From my experience in the field, it was always a lot easier to talk to somebody that I could tell would roll up their sleeves and do something,” explained Arzola. “Tommy (Duke) and Ryan (Santos) are very much the same way, we all put on our steel toes, we throw on our work shirts, and we’re getting just as dirty as the rest of them as it goes because it’s hands-on training for everybody.”
Stream-Flo USA Field Service Technical Trainer Israel Arzola, in a dirty shirt to prove it, isn’t afraid to roll up his sleeves and get to work right beside those he’s teaching. It’s an approach he appreciated and respected from the trainers who taught him early on in his career. (Ryan Santos)
Best of both worlds
The training Arzola is mainly responsible for delivering falls under the intermediate category, with things such as lubricator instruction, gate valve training, torch cutting, and Wachs saw work that is fundamental to installing our premier DMLX and DMLX-S wellhead systems, comprising most of the hands-on portion of what he teaches.
Then there is the classroom side of things, which features Arzola and other technical instructors focusing on API fundamentals and other key pressure control concepts with students being tested throughout the three days to confirm they’re retaining the knowledge they’re receiving.
As Arzola has more firmly gotten things in place with leading the course, the importance of getting these initial building blocks correct is something he stresses.
“That’s been the bulk of things, just lining things up to make sure that the new hires from now on have a really good place to start out with our training telling a story that makes sense, because that’s where our company grows from is our trainees and level ones,” said Arzola. “The ultimate goal is to just make sure they have a solid foundation and a path of progression.”
Indeed, that path of progression, and a confident one at that, is something Cooper Allan, the newly hired former tree service worker in Midland, now feels he has after graduating the Wellhead 101 class.
“I’m very excited,” said Allan of how he feels for the next six months and on with this new foundation underneath him. “It really gave me a better picture of what my future’s going to look like and what the job is, so it was very helpful.”
A strong one-two training punch
Allan says a big part of the reason why the course was so helpful had a lot to do with the one-two punch of senior Stream-Flo USA Field Trainer Tommy Duke and the recently hired Arzola balancing each other out beautifully.
“I thought that Tommy (Duke) and Israel (Arzola) were a really good team together because Tommy has a wealth of knowledge and knows so much but a lot of it kind of went over my head because he just knows everything,” said Allan. “Israel was a great bridge for Tommy’s knowledge; he was able to break things down and give me a direct answer versus some of the nuances I didn’t quite understand yet.”
Stream-Flo USA Field Trainer Tommy Duke, middle, works with service techs William Curran and Shannon Allen as they practice casing cutting. (Ryan Santos)
Understandably, strong communication, especially with all our branches that are strategically stationed across the United States, is one of Arzola’s main strengths, as he and Stream-Flo Corporate Technical Training Manager Ryan Santos work hand in hand under the guidance of Stream-Flo Vice President HSE, Technical Training & Property Management Grant Pilgrim, to build a strong foundation under the feet of all our service techs.
“They’re still catching jobs, they’re day-to-day life is still really, really hard,” said Arzola of the competing priorities our branches contend with daily. “But we keep stressing to all the branches that we can’t do it without y’all, so opening up that line of communication was key, and it’s been very pivotal to making sure we’re moving in the right direction.”
A less stressful learning environment
Arzola says another key aspect of moving the comprehensive Wellhead 101 course in the right direction has been the dedicated Derrington training facility in Houston they run the course out of.
Compared to where he learned a lot of his skills over the course of his extensive service tech career, the facility with a dummy cellar and other advanced training tools comes with a lot less stress.
“I tell the techs time and time again it’s pretty cool because what we’re doing here I learned on location and very much the pressure’s on,” said Arzola. “Company man’s looking at you, the senior tech’s looking at you, and before you’re loading up and grabbing all the tools the service manager’s kind of telling you, like, don’t mess this up, if you mess this up you don’t work here no more, so being able to do it here (at Derrington) and block out all of that outside noise and actually give them a comfortable environment where they can learn it is huge, because a lot of other places you can’t do that.”
They can also holler across the street to our Fallbrook location and have our dedicated engineers come by to further help explain things if need be, a technical luxury not afforded to many other places either, adds Arzola.
Safety and pride at the forefront
At the end of day, Arzola says having a well-trained field staff is a matter of safety and pride for him and it’s those two key qualities he hopes to pass on through his mentorship to the next generation of techs coming up behind him.
“We wear Stream-Flo, you have that badge on you and that’s the company you’re representing,” said Arzola. “Integrity is key in this business, it’s a very, very small-knit world.”
It’s an important lesson Arzola learned long ago, when he started out as a tech and had a trainer who left a lasting impression on him.
“He really opened my eyes as far as like you’re only as good as your last job, keep your head in the game, I really want you to come back safe,” recalled Arzola of the lessons that were bestowed upon him. “Then there I was with just two years of field experience under my belt and training 50-60 brand new people with no wellhead experience, it was a huge responsibility for me to make sure that they all went home safe.”
Israel Arzola firmly believes in leading by example, as this picture of him on the tools during a recent Lubricator School in Houston shows. (Ryan Santos)
Back in Canada, Kyle Blakeman, the Fort McMurray service tech who learned more in three days than his previous six months at another wellhead company, is feeling taken care of and more secure as he heads back out into the field, especially as he primarily deals with the high pressure and high temperatures thermal work in northern Alberta is known for.
“My comfortability level is way higher,” said Blakeman. “Having a better understanding of how it works, you know how to work safer as well.”
Citing the open and understanding atmosphere of the Wellhead 101 course he took in Canada at the Stream-Flo Centre of Excellence campus in Edmonton where he always felt comfortable asking any questions he had, Blakeman adds his confidence level is now way higher too, as are his hopes for his Stream-Flo career.
“I would like to get a little more knowledge and eventually challenge the test and go for level 2,” said Blakeman of his goal now to reach the next service tech step. “That is the intention.”
Stream-Flo Service Technician Kyle Blakeman says he feels a lot more confident and safer in the field after completing the comprehensive three-day Wellhead 101 course. He is also excited to gain more knowledge and progress his career after taking part in it. (Submitted: Kyle Blakeman)
Making the program universal
As he reflects on the progress he’s made so far with Wellhead 101 training in the United States — something that is already evolving into a more intensive five-day course called the Basic Service Technician (BST) program — Israel Arzola is excitedly looking forward to what the future will hold for the training team and those it equips, namely a finalized Intermediate Service Technician (IST) program that sets techs up to be over-prepared for field work, and expanding all of what they do to reach even further.
“We do want it eventually to be one global Stream-Flo brand,” explained Arzola. “That way our techs are universal.”
It’s a future Arzola has already gotten a glimpse of.
“That’s always the coolest thing is watching these techs from all these different branches that have never met before, they run different systems and they get oil or natural gas out of the ground in very different ways, and watching them just work hand in hand and still being able to knock it out and follow the same procedures because of that standardization Stream-Flo has laid out,” summed up Arzola. “We’re all working for the same company and you’re only as strong as your weakest link, so why not make sure everybody’s beefed up, you know?”
Thanks to Stream-Flo’s in-depth training program and the great people running it, like Arzola, Ryan Santos, Tommy Duke and Merv Petersen, Josh Masson and Adam Coughlan in Canada, Stream-Flo service techs across North America are given the foundation to excel in the field in a safe manner and one that supports their career progression goals.
They’re all “beefed up”, ready to hit the ground running at an extremely high level.