Brown & Root Announces Establishment Of Corporate Headquarters In Baton Rouge

BATON ROUGE, La. — Today, Gov. Bobby Jindal and Brown & Root CEO Andy Dupuy announced the company will establish its corporate headquarters in Baton Rouge, with the Brown & Root executive team moving from Houston to Baton Rouge. From its Louisiana headquarters, Brown & Root will oversee global operations with more than 6,000 employees. Brown & Root operations will include newly acquired Wink Engineering (formerly Willbros Group downstream engineering assets) and its 325 Louisiana employees in Baton Rouge, Mandeville and St. Rose, near New Orleans.

The Brown & Root corporate headquarters, to be located at Citiplace on Corporate Boulevard, will bring 25 executives to Baton Rouge by the end of 2015, followed by an additional 25 executives by the end of 2016, for a total of 50 new direct jobs averaging $192,000 per year, plus benefits. Louisiana Economic Development estimates an additional 72 new indirect jobs will result from the corporate operations, for a total of more than 120 new jobs associated with the Baton Rouge headquarters.

Brown & Root will create another 550 industrial jobs in Louisiana over the next decade, for a total of 925 Brown & Root jobs in Louisiana, in addition to the company’s thousands of employees deployed at branch offices and project sites worldwide.

Gov. Jindal said, “Louisiana’s talent in the industrial services sector ranks second to none, and this major headquarters announcement demonstrates what we know so well: Louisiana offers the best business climate, workforce talent and infrastructure assets in the world when it comes to building the future. We welcome Brown & Root to Baton Rouge, and we’re proud that this venture will create hundreds of great new jobs for families in our capital and throughout the state of Louisiana.”

The headquarters project follows the acquisition, earlier this month, of Wink Engineering LLC from Willbros Group Inc. by an investment group led by Bernhard Capital Partners, a Baton Rouge private equity firm focused on energy services.

Bernhard Capital Partners, in partnership with Houston-based KBR Inc., is re-establishing Brown & Root as a globally recognized industrial services provider by combining KBR’s Industrial Services Americas Group with Wink Engineering. Brown & Root will continue serving customers in the downstream, refining, petrochemical, chemical and manufacturing industries, with a renewed focus on customer service and project execution in the industrial services segment of the energy marketplace.

“Louisiana and Baton Rouge are synonymous with hard-working, can-do people,” Brown & Root’s Andy Dupuy said. “The industrial roots here are strong, and we look forward to making Brown & Root the gold standard of our industry, with Baton Rouge as our base of operations. We would like to thank our local, regional and state partners for helping make today a reality. We look forward to quickly expanding our industrial services offerings throughout the world.”

LED began discussing the corporate headquarters project with the company in May 2015. To secure the project, the State of Louisiana offered Brown & Root a competitive incentive package that includes a performance-based $1.8 million performance-based grant to reimburse relocation costs and to provide lease support for the corporate headquarters. The company also will receive the comprehensive solutions of LED FastStart^®, ranked the nation’s No. 1 state workforce development program. In addition, Brown & Root is expected to utilize the state’s Quality Jobs Program.

“Brown and Root’s decision to locate in Baton Rouge demonstrates the region’s attractiveness as a corporate headquarters,” said Baton Rouge Mayor-President Melvin “Kip” Holden. “This company is not only creating new jobs that will have an immediate impact, but over the longer term, they will create even more jobs indirectly and through construction projects in the coming years.”

“Brown and Root’s selection of Baton Rouge brings a tremendous company legacy – with formative ties to Louisiana as far back as the 1920s – to our fast-growing area, further strengthening our regional economy,” said President and CEO Adam Knapp of the Baton Rouge Area Chamber. “BRAC’s team became engaged early on in the company’s discovery process and worked closely with management on market analysis.”

About Brown & Root
Based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Brown & Root is a premier provider of industrial maintenance, engineering and construction services. One of the world’s biggest players in the industrial services segment, Brown & Root has over 6,000 employees, with operations throughout the United States, Mexico and Canada. Brown & Root began in 1919, when Texas brothers George and Herman Brown joined their brother-in-law, Dan Root, to create a world-class construction company. Over the next several decades, Brown & Root developed its expertise in providing everything from roads and bridges to industrial services. During World War II, Brown & Root provided significant support to the U.S. armed forces. After the war, its operations expanded to engineering major petrochemical plants and projects overseas. In 1947, the company pioneered the construction of the first offshore platform located off the Louisiana coast in the Gulf of Mexico and in 1965 the first offshore platform in the North Sea.