Dust permeates the air at a Chesapeake Energy Co. fracking operation at a well site near Carrizo Springs, Texas. (Photo: JOHN DAVENPORT/ This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it )

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Employers in the Eagle Ford shale say there’s a desperate need for truck drivers to haul water, sand and oil. But they’re having trouble filling those jobs because too many applicants fail drug tests and background checks.

They want to get the word out that anyone with a commercial driver’s license who can pass the tests is pretty much guaranteed a job, Manuel Ugues, business services director at Workforce Solutions of the Coastal Bend said at the second meeting of the Eagle Ford Task Force Wednesday.

The meeting was held at Coastal Bend College.

Workforce Solutions polled 10 employers in the Eagle Ford shale, and they reported that one out of every four applicants fails a company’s screening, Ugues said.

There are no easy solutions to finding good employees, task force members agreed, but Kirk Spilman, asset manager in San Antonio for Houston-based Marathon Oil, said his company has had good luck hiring former military people. “We’re proud of the recruitment from the military. We just hired seven people, and they’re very disciplined,” he said.

But Spilman added that qualified job applicants for his industry, especially in South Texas, aren’t likely to file applications online.

“You need a job fair,” said Glynis Strause, dean of institutional advancement at Coastal Bend College.

Ugues was one of several speakers who addressed the 24-member task force, which was formed earlier this summer by Railroad Commissioner David Porter. The task force includes county officials, landowners, water district officials, oil company representatives and educators.

Wednesday’s agenda touched on ways to find qualified workers, and Strause outlined the college’s programs

The task force, in setting an agenda for future monthly meetings, decided that water usage and the effect of drilling on the local community should be the initial topics for future discussions.

The task force needs to look at damage to South Texas roads caused by heavy trucks used by the industry, several members said.

“We’re going with hands out, begging, because we can’t raise enough to repair our roads,” said DeWitt County Judge Daryl Fowler.

Water usage for hydraulic fracturing is another issue the task force should address soon, members agreed.

Talking about water usage “is critical,” said Terry Retzloff, founder of TR Measurement Witnessing of Campbellton, an oil and mineral consulting firm. “It’s a big elephant.”

It would be beneficial, said Stephen Ingram, technology manager at Halliburton, for members of the task force look for ways to educate themselves on water usage and the state’s water laws.

And Mike Mahoney, general manager of the Evergreen Underground Water Conservation District in Pleasanton, said he needs, for planning purposes, “a reasonable estimate” of the amount of water the industry is using now and what will be needed in future years.

Getting accurate information to the public about industry practices and countering misleading or inaccurate information will be a key focus of the task force, members agreed. To that end, members suggested a website for the group, but there are no concrete plans for one.

Supreme Services oil field worker Greg Martinez looks over the lunch buffet at the Remote Logistics International, LLC Three Rivers Lodge Thursday Aug. 19, 2011 in Three Rivers. (PHOTO BY EDWARD A. ORNELAS/ This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it )

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THREE RIVERS – Down a quiet, bumpy road in a neighborhood of modest homes, lunch is served to anyone between shifts in the Eagle Ford shale oil fields.

The buffet includes lamb kabobs on a bed of black-eyed peas with spinach, shrimp étouffée, short ribs with tomato roast pepper demi-glace and smoked tomato chutney, crawfish muffins, stuffed potatoes, pasta salad with garbanzo beans and salami tossed in an herb vinaigrette, parmesan cheese crisps and a spread of homemade desserts: chocolate mouse, cheesecake, pumpkin pie and salted nuts covered with chocolate.

“The food is incredible,” said Freddy Trevino, a hydraulic flowback operator from Alice who a few hours earlier had finished a 12-hour overnight shift.

It’s been notoriously difficult to find a place to stay across the constellation of South Texas towns where oil companies have descended to draw gas and oil from the Eagle Ford shale formation, which lies beneath 24 counties and sweeps from the border across the state to East Texas. Hotel rooms are full, RV parks have sprung up in front yards and amenities are hard to come by.

Now a few enterprising companies are taking both rooms and upscale amenities to the oil patch, offering midnight meals, door-to-door laundry service, satellite cable, WiFi and media rooms to keep oil field workers, and the companies that house them, happy.

At Remote Logistics International’s Three Rivers Lodge, guests receive gourmet food nearly round-the-clock, box lunches to go, boot cleaning and laundry service, and they can hang out and watch movies, work out or play shuffleboard, table tennis or pool in common areas.

“It’s a hotel-man camp with a woman’s touch,” said company President Jenny Savage. “But the culinary side to me is the most important part. It’s all about the food.”

Based in Houston

Savage is the former general manager of Houston’s George R. Brown Convention Center. She started her career working at Hyatt Hotels and later worked at Aramark. But she grew up in the oil business. Her father was the vice president of international operations at Dresser Inc. and her brother owns an oil field services company.

Savage had the idea for the Houston-based Remote Logistics – bringing upscale hotel amenities to wherever oil companies were located – while studying for her master of business administration at the University of Houston. So three years ago she raised money from investors – although not from her family – and cashed in her 401(k).

Now Remote Logistics has 300 employees throughout the world, from Gulf of Mexico oil platforms to the Middle East and on shipping vessels in between.

The company opened in Three Rivers in July and expects to open a second Eagle Ford shale location in the Carrizo Springs area before year’s end.

Executive chef Will Smith, who worked with Savage at the convention center and later for Disney in California, oversees the menus and training for the company. Smith sweats the details of “simple stuff like kiwi,” which takes two weeks to get to Three Rivers, and making sure that ingredients are as fresh as possible and menus have everything from fried chicken to couscous.

“It’s really different kind of food,” Smith said. And although there are healthy offerings, he admits he’s feeding a meat-and-potatoes palette. “We smoke a lot of meat around here,” he said.

Remote Logistics isn’t the only company trying to make far-flung areas more comfortable.

Loaded trailers

John Gilmore of the Austin-based Eagle Ford Shale Housing LLC offers fully furnished double-wide trailers that were former model homes. The big attractions of his Carrizo Springs operation are things such as full kitchens, WiFi, satellite cable and TVs in every room.

“So many people are stuck in FEMA RVs and horrible living conditions,” he said. “Our idea is to do it a little nicer. Maybe for some of these guys, it’s as nice as where they’re living at home.”

Bob Zachariah is building a 77-room hotel in Cotulla that will have a pool, spa and playground, 24-hour restaurant with indoor and outdoor seating, lounge areas, a gift shop, multiple meeting spaces, a media room for movie watching and a fitness center. People will be able to order everything from towels to to-go lunches from their TVs, and the business center will have fax machines and be like a “miniature Kinko’s” so that people can ship using UPS.

“Basically what we’re doing is taking a five-star hotel concept that you see in New York or New Delhi or any of the major cities and bringing it down in size and converting it into an affordable hotel,” Zachariah said.

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