Legacy Companies

Having completed over thirteen years as the Vice President (General Manager) & Fire Chief of the Refinery Terminal Fire Company (RTFC) in Corpus Christi, Texas, Bob Andrews was frustrated. With his life savings and a dream, he formed Industrial Emergency Services, LLC (IES) on March 19, 1999, building upon his international reputation as an oil and petrochemical industrial firefighting expert.

He attracted friends and colleagues to come to work with him and almost immediately landed his first major contract at the Star Enterprises (a joint venture between Texaco, Shell, and Saudi Aramco) oil refinery in Convent, Louisiana.

He and his team continued to build IES and in 2004 Bob received a call from his colleague Jerry Craft with the world-renowned oil firefighting company, Williams Fire & Hazard Control. Jerry told Bob of an opportunity with Marathon Oil Company on Bioko Island in Equatorial Guinea, located off the West Coast of Africa by Cameroon. After intense negotiations with Marathon, IES was awarded a contract to provide professional fire department leadership staffing to protect Marathon’s facilities on the island. Intuitively understanding the business repercussions of operating internationally, on December 23, 2004, Bob created IES Global Services, LLC as a wholly-owned subsidiary of IES in order to segregate IES’ domestic and international operations.

IES continued to grow, and in 2010 IES was awarded a major contract by the Volkswagen Group of America, to protect their brand-new billion-dollar assembly plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The Volkswagen opportunity not only created expansion opportunities for IES geographically, it also provided an entrance into the highly competitive and technically challenging automotive manufacturing sector.

But with growth comes challenges, and as a long-time student and practitioner of Christian stewardship, it became more and more clear to Bob that in order for IES and its employees to strive, he would have to attract outside investment to fund IES’ future. Bob and his leadership team quietly sought outside investment, the results of which were consummated on March 9, 2012. The announcement celebrating that deal can be found on this page.

Having completed over 37 years in the active fire service, Bob is extremely happy in his new role at IES, that of Member – Board of Managers, and Fire Chief Emeritus. Bob continues to own a significant, but minority, interest in the “new” Industrial Emergency Services, LLC, now headquartered in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and is extremely bullish on IES’ continued success.

For additional information on Industrial Emergency Services, please visit their website at www.iesllc.com..