Maverick Oil started out simply 35 years ago, and came about largely through the hard work and vision of founder Mike Schnell, who literally grew up around the industry.
Maverick Oil started out simply 35 years ago, and came about largely through the hard work and vision of founder Mike Schnell, who literally grew up around the industry.
Mike is the son of Gerald Schnell, who was raised in Lampman, brother to Richard Schnell and David Schnell, a longtime reeve of the RM of Browning.
Mike's family was moved from Frobisher to a small town east of Calgary, Cessford, where Mike took his Gr. 1-12 schooling, and all his friends were either ranch kids or oil-and-gas kids.
"Oil and gas been in my blood since I was five years old. A Saturday afternoon with Dad usually involved hanging on to a pipewrench somewhere out on the prairies. I have no recollection of fishing with Dad until I took him fly-in fishing," said Mike.
Maverick Oil was established in October of 1978 by Mike and his brother Craig, as they "partnered up with a little bit of experience, an old crew truck, not much money but a whole lot of enthusiasm," said Mike.
"We did our first day of work for Murphy Oil in Lloydminster; we began by setting pumpjacks and doing single well facilities," he added, noting they soon added a second one-ton truck, and within one year they retired the old original one-ton, and were able to slip a new truck under the old deck, which he used until about three years ago.
The two brothers hired a third brother, Brad, to run the next one-ton, and then they bought a backhoe, and an old Hayes bed truck, bought at an auction sale (where Mike and Craig bid against each other).
"We had a tank mover built and soon we were using the bed truck to set jacks and move tanks. That was how we did it then, with lots of back-breaking labour and no picker trucks. Soon we purchased a big picker, a 12-ton mounted on a tired old Pete.
Then in the early 80's, Mike described the impact of a difficult time for the oil industry: "The National Energy Program of Pierre Trudeau's hit us like a ton of bricks like it did everyone else. We were hurting. No Work and lots of payments. The work we did do would barely cover the wages and fuel, so there was no chance of making a profit for a few years."
He and his wife raised their family through all of this, a son and a daughter, and today both are married with children.
Part of the success of his business, he said, was due to learning early "the value of employee and customer retention. I am nothing without both of them, and good equipment helps."
He then began to be involved in the pipeline side of the business when in 1993 he was asked by then-PanCanadian to be their pipeline contractor in the Provost area; his brother Craig asked to be bought out the following year, and Mike then became the sole owner of Maverick.
He was also asked to sponsor some people through the apprenticeship program, which he did.
"With no journeymen on staff, we slowly began to build our crew of tradesmen. I am proud of our guys; three of them have achieved 'Golden Pipewrench Awards', which means they're the best of the best of alla the pipefitting classes in the province for the year. These guys are still with me 20 years later," he noted.
The company has grown some more, with pipeline and facility crews based out of Weyburn and Kindersley areas; in Weyburn, the crew of 12-14 people has been working here for about a year now along with some pieces of heavy equipment and trucks.
"Our crews are some of the most respected leaders in the industry, and I am proud to say I raised most of them from 'pups'. Maverick is all about people; people are our strength," said Mike.
He noted as well the company has developed a good reputation stemming from that old truck cradle that they built in the early 80s.
"We now move tanks as big as 5,000-barrels all over the province. Over-dimensional loads are our specialty; with the assistance of our 45-ton cranes, we can do a lot of heavy lifting and specialized lowboys help us be leaders in the patch. In business for 35 years, Maverick is now looking at aggressively expanding by acquisition and by organic growth. We look forward to the next 35 years," said Mike.
