Leadership and Chemistry with LFS Chemistry Executive Jim Holmes

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:00:00] Leadership and chemistry, how much do they truly have in common? Well, it’s a lot more than you would expect on this unscripted episode of The Crude Truth.

 

Narator [00:00:12] In 1901, at Spindletop Hill near Beaumont, the future of Texas changed dramatically, as, like a fountain of fortune, thousands of barrels of oil burst from the earth towards the sky. Soon Detroit would be cranking out Model T’s by the millions, and America was on the move thanks to the black gold being produced in Texas. Now, more than a century later, the vehicles are different, but nothing else has truly changed. Sure, there may be many other alternative energy sources like wind and solar and electric. But let’s be honest, America depends on oil and entrepreneurs, and if the USA is truly going to be independent, it has to know the crew.

 

Narator [00:00:54] Truth. This episode is brought to you by LFS Chemistry. We are committed to being good stewards of the environment. We are providing the tools so you can be too. NAPE Expo, where deals happen. Air Compressor Solutions. When everything is on the line, Air Compressor Solutions is the dependable choice to keep commercial business powered up. Sandstone Group. Exec Crew. Elevate your network, elevate your knowledge. Texas Star Alliance. Pecos Country Operating. Fueling Our Future.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:01:30] Jim Holmes, LFS Chemistry, great sponsor of the crude truth, exec crew mentor, Burjillian Brazilian jujitsu connoisseur. How are you doing?

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:01:45] I am doing great, healing from o all the wounds in the oil field and jujitsu.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:01:49] Right. And you know, this show I like how I said unscripted. First of all, ladies and gentlemen, the show is always truly unscripted. Yeah, I may give people talking points, but but this was an hour and a half ago.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:02:01] This this was sitting at lunch having a conversation about oil field chemistry, family, children, you name it, and here we are, unscripted, crude truth.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:02:10] And it goes back to our very first episode when you said you never know where a conversation’s gonna take you. You you always say yes to the conversation. That’s something you taught me the very first time I met.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:02:20] Absolutely, it’s it’s the most fun way to to have the conversation, right? When it’s unscripted is is the most raw you can have in a conversation.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:02:27] Well, I can’t thank you enough. What a great day. First of all, thank you for lunch today. Of course. If I actually had a nickel, I think, for every time somebody else bought me lunch, I think I’d have two nickels. So thank you.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:02:38] Two neckles. I think I have both of those for you.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:02:40] You I th truth be told, I think you both of those two. Yes. So I have two nickels because of you. So two nickels and a bottle of whiskey. Yeah. And a oh, that that is a good bottle. And we’re trying something new. Belfort. Eddie Belfort, for those of you that don’t know, he is the star goalie of the nineteen ninety nine Dallas Stars. And so here at the Real News bar.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:03:05] It’s it’s the bar, the unscripted bar.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:03:06] The unscripted bar, they had something. So we were trying it out. And not bad. Especially for a a star, movie star alcohol these days. Absolutely. It’s delicious. Yeah. So question, why did you get yours neat versus me getting mine with a rocket?

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:03:21] Well, because I like it warm and bold, not watered down and chilled.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:03:26] That I think that sums up a lot of things about me here right there. Yeah. This water’s chemistry.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:03:29] This is this is chemistry at at work right here.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:03:32] Everything I need. Well speaking of that, first of all, I want to say thank you again. Again. This was impromptu. I had an interview that I did and I was like, Do you want to come do one? And you’re like, Yeah. And you watched my son for literally 45 minutes. So I I cannot thank you enough. You gave him supposedly a Red Bull, but I’m gonna pretend like you didn’t.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:03:51] You can pretend all you want.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:03:52] I’m gonna pretend like he did a brownie and he has a full lemonade. And for my friends out there know I water down his lemonade all the time.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:04:00] Yes.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:04:01] It’s a full minute made lemonade.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:04:03] Don’t leave your son with Jim or he’s gonna get brownies, lemonade, and a Red Bull. And it’s it was a sugar free Red Bull.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:04:09] Oh oh yeah, ’cause I just made it better. It’s it’s it’s in his stomach now killing all the parasites. That supposedly that’s the new thing going around around parasites.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:04:16] It’s also a reason he has to be every fifteen minutes, so

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:04:19] He did. Yeah, we’re ready for the roll. Anyway, what is going on at LFS Chemistry right now? What have y’all been into?

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:04:26] Man, it’s you know, it’s been a roller coaster of a year.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:04:29] Yeah.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:04:29] I I think everybody in our in our segment in the oil field you know is pretty much feeling the same thing. So it’s who knows what next month has to has to hold and and we’re weathering a storm extremely well. Matter of fact, we’re we’re actually growing at the moment and adding new clients and still developing new chemistries and we just got a few new commercial chemistries out in the field for the first trials and oh wow. They are doing absolutely fantastic. So, you know, the the ebb and flow of chemistry is you you try new stuff, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

 

Speaker 5 [00:04:59] Yeah.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:05:00] Usually we catch when it doesn’t work in the lab rather than in the field.

 

Speaker 5 [00:05:03] Right.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:05:04] So everything we release commercial, we want to make sure is is a do no harm and and is going to show a lot of value to the customer. So, you know, down years like like this, we’re actually forecasted to do better than we did last year. Okay. By the end of the year, which is actually extremely promising. So we’re super proud of the entire team. Again, this is one of those things I don’t do by myself. I’m I’m one tiny piece of that cog. And without without the entire company running at a hundred miles an hour, it you know, this this is what makes us great.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:05:34] Well, you know, I’ve had a chance to meet some of your engineers and they are very smart. They’re they’re book smart, they’re talented smart. And it it just blows me away. You know, that you you talk about you never want to be the smartest person in the room because that’s truly a good thing. And you can always make jokes about it, right? But wow, you’ve got just such a great team there, and you guys truly care about what’s going on. And and you and I think that’s a testament to your customers or clients that are like, you know what, let’s give it a try. Like they’re not afraid to experiment with these new chemicals that are all environmentally safe. Like for those out there that don’t know, they’re all environmentally safe.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:06:13] But they’re willing to work with the majority of them.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:06:15] Majority of them, yeah.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:06:16] The rest of them are designed to go down an oil well. So, you know, there’s the there’s the performance versus cost versus environmental friendliness, right? But at the end of the day, we’re manufacturing as as many of our chemistries as possible to be environmentally friendly.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:06:30] Right. You know, one thing I I do want to ask you about and is the amount of wells that aren’t being drilled anymore. We’re seeing now like in the Bach, and I think they’re getting ready to do some four mile laterals. So, you know, ten or twelve years ago, that’s four different wells because we were just at a mile lateral ten or twelve years ago. How are you guys adapting to the more efficiency of things that are going on?

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:06:53] So you know, there’s always evolution within within our our industry. You know, drilling farther and deeper than we’ve ever drilled before is is just another phase of that evolution. Extracting as much hydrocarbon from those same number of lateral feet of of reservoir this drilled is always the challenge, right? You know, it wasn’t that long ago that we’re extracting single digits, you know, five to ten percent from some of these, some of these new drills. Now we’re pushing those limits up to 20 and beyond 20% ultimate recovery. So it’s, you know, from a chemistry standpoint, how can we help the directional drillers and the and the drilling engineers extend farther in a faster amount of time? And then how can we extract more hydrocarbon safely, efficiently, and in a cost effective manner from those reservoirs and and allow those wells to produce for a longer duration of time, right? Those there’s kind of two parts to that oil extraction process. It’s how long can we keep the production up and how much ultimate can we get out of the reservoir? A lot of those are challenging for chemistries, right? We’re seeing changes in water chemistry. We’re seeing more and more produced water that produce water is getting worse and worse to deal with. And those aren’t always friendly for for a lot of chemistries. So that challenges our entire R D team to always be looking at what’s next. You know, a lot of companies and and we’ve been guilty of it before is is let’s focus on what’s right now.

 

Speaker 5 [00:08:16] Yeah.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:08:16] Here’s a problem right now, instead of looking out a year, two years. But I’d say we have an incredible team that’s looking at stuff that might happen years from now. And where do we need to be positioned as a company to to be a value proposition for the for the operators around the world?

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:08:32] No. You know, let me ask you this, Jim. You you talk about looking out and looking further. And in in my tagline today, I I talked about leadership. And you are someone that truly lives by the example of leadership, but you also do a great job mentoring, not teaching, mentoring and leading by example. What was it that that you saw where it’s like, ooh, we’re stuck right here and we’re not looking to the Ford? And how did y’all break that mold?

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:09:04] Well, again, there’s this goes back to that entire team. You know, my job primarily is just to set a mission and then help assist in execution of that, right? I’ve I’ve got incredible people that I work with every day that make all these individual components of making the business run absolutely fantastic. You know, from the from the head of technologies to the head of commercialization. These guys are the ones with really the long term the long term vision for where the chemistry itself needs to go.

 

Speaker 5 [00:09:32] Yeah.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:09:34] My biggest role in the company is is helping steer that steer that ship into which direction should we go? Should we be pursuing new markets? Should we be expanding existing markets? Should you know, sometimes doing both of those at the same time?

 

Speaker 5 [00:09:48] Yeah.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:09:48] You know, we haven’t done a whole lot of expansion outside of our primary market segments. It’s something that we had a lot of aspirations for in twenty twenty five.

 

Speaker 5 [00:09:56] Who

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:09:57] And, you know, there’s been some some turbulence in the industry for twenty twenty five. So we reined a little bit of that back in and really kind of focused on on what we were really good at and becoming even better at it.

 

Speaker 5 [00:10:08] Right.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:10:09] So, you know, again, it’s it’s not me in there saying we need to do we need to get from A to B. Really my job is just to identify where is A and B.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:10:20] Okay.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:10:21] And then I let people do what they’re really good at and I stay out of the way.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:10:24] Yeah.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:10:25] I get updates from everybody on a regular basis. Sometimes I don’t have any idea what they’re talking about. So I ask a few questions and other than that it’s again, it’s trusting. Trusting the entire team. I don’t have a single part of the LFS organization that I don’t trust.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:10:40] Okay. Today at lunch, we we learned that we’re both Eagle Scouts. And and then your dad was even a park ranger at one time. So I can’t imagine growing up, like I like to always think I had a great growing up. You know, my dad was and and he people have heard me say before a computer nerd, but we were camping from the time I was, I think, three or five years old. And it was always amazing. But to have s grow up with a park ranger, and and being and I wanted to highlight that because I think that really adds more to to your aura of who you are, Jim.

 

Speaker 5 [00:11:16] Mm-hmm.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:11:17] I do want to say that, but being an Eagle Scout, kind of throw this out there, you know, what have you seen that’s been able to lead you? Because as we also talked about before I let you answer, is Boy Scouts of America is no longer in it Scouting of America or something like that. But but you know, what can you take away from that Eagle Scout and earning all those p merit badges and and taking on leadership roles that prepared you to have such a successful company in LFS chemistry?

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:11:44] Yeah, so I think, you know, back in the time when I was in in scouts, you know, there was it was certainly one of those things that wasn’t necessarily the coolest thing to do for a lot of the lot of the friends that I had, the so called friends, right? That

 

Speaker 5 [00:11:55] Right.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:11:56] You eventually grow away from and and find new friends that have more aligned interests in what you do. And you know, so Scouts for me was was kind of twofold. And my dad really pushed this hard on me as for him, it was a lot like a college education in a way. And I’m not talking about the highly technical degrees, you know, beginning a doctor or something like that. This was more, you know, the the arts degrees and things like that. It was more about you finished something you started. So for example, my dad did not have a degree in finance or business or investor relations.

 

Speaker 5 [00:12:27] Mm-hmm.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:12:28] Right. His was in forestry. But he never did that as a career much after college. He went into investor relations and he was an editor for magazines and he did everything but what his degree was in. But his biggest his biggest thing to that was I finished. I started something and I finished it. And I think Scouts in a lot of ways was that. He would not let us not finish.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:12:52] Yeah.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:12:53] It was you’re going to see this through, you’re going to stick it through because that’s gonna define who you are as a person.

 

Speaker 5 [00:12:57] Yeah.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:12:58] As you get older. Now that’s not to say that in addition to that, all of the, all of the simple tasks that we learned, all the, you know, all the merit badges and all the other things that we got that were everything from knot tying to archery to rowing to one we always joked about, which was underwater basket weaving. You know, it’s not a real one, by the way, but you know, it was always a challenge who could get the most of these little accolades within scouts. And then, you know, we also did basic survival skills. You know, I have a couple that I had, I’d go look up what they were called, but you know, you got put out in the woods by yourself for 36 to 48 hours.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:13:34] Wilderness survival.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:13:35] Yeah, you got you got a tarp and you got a match and you got a a pocket knife and a little packet of beef jerky or some dehydrated fruit and it’s like, hey, figure it out.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:13:43] Yeah.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:13:44] Now then you didn’t realize that you had adults watching you from just far enough away to make sure you didn’t die out there. But you know, you know, when you’re when you’re twelve, yeah, you’re out in the woods by yourself and you’re just like, wow, you you hear things and you see things and you observe things. And you know, so I think all that ties into your business relationship going forward is you know, when you’re out there it’s it’s raw, it’s unfiltered. Yeah. There’s no there’s no real preparation for that. You’re kind of thrust into it, especially if you’ve never done it before.

 

Speaker 5 [00:14:14] Yeah.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:14:14] And I think business is a lot like that. So you, you know, you kind of build the team around you in scouts that was building your shelter and and creating your fire. You know, in business, it’s more about do I have a healthy fire? Do I have a healthy shelter? And can I trust those to protect me when I need it most? And yeah, you know, so that kind of a long-winded way to get there, but it it explains how scouts can transition all the way into, you know, your life later in business when you’re starting a company and you know, starting another company. And you learn you learn a lot, right? It’s the fire goes out that first night or you couldn’t get it started because the wood’s damp. A lot of that ties into what you do in business. I you know, I’ve been very vocal that I’ve had one fail. And it was because I I had damp wood, I couldn’t get the fire lit under it. So it’s you know, I think it all transitions nicely into into business from a very early age. And I think those are values you can’t just you don’t learn on the street, you don’t learn from video games, you don’t learn from from a lot of the things that kids do today.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:15:13] You know, pick up a book, read it, listen to podcasts, always be learning.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:15:17] It’s something I need to get back to again. You know, but life gets really chaotic and sometimes it’s hard, so

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:15:23] When you talk about your life being chaotic, you have been literally jet setting here over the last six to eight weeks. No.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:15:31] Six years.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:15:32] Well six years, but but you and your son have been doing Brazilian jujitsu and y’all kind of found it and remember we’ve talked about it, y’all found it a way to bond together, but he’s taking this now to a whole other level.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:15:45] It’s ridiculous.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:15:45] And you’ve been now to Rome and Brazil in the last two months, right?

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:15:50] Yeah, so Rome was a fascinating experience. You know, I I when we when he started jujitsu seven years ago, I guess about seven years ago now, I don’t think I understood that he was gonna dive in as deep as he dove in, right? It seven years ago it was we go twice a week, three times a week, and it was fun, and then he started competing locally. You know, now that’s turned into a thirteen year old yellow belt at one of the most competitive schools in the country, training six days a week for a minimum of two hours a day, sometimes much longer, particularly on the weekends.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:16:24] Yeah.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:16:25] And now we’re traveling not just around the country, but now we’re getting out of the country to compete in areas like the European championships over in Rome this last year.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:16:34] Right.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:16:34] So what an experience. You know, some of those are pretty rough ’cause we you know, you fly out on a Thursday. We arrived on Friday, he trained Friday night, competed Saturday, Sunday, fly out on Monday. So it it becomes it’s a pretty aggressive schedule.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:16:50] You don’t even have time for jet lag in that in that scenario at all.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:16:55] No, and it’s it you know, it’s it’s get back to the rest of the family, it’s get back to work, it’s you know, when you’re when you’re traveling that much for things like jujitsu, I’d you know, I give him all the support in the world. It’s incredible to watch him on the mat. I mean, you wanna talk about stress and anxiety?

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:17:10] Yeah.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:17:12] Exponentially more stress and anxiety watching him compete than me walking on the mat to compete. I’ll walk on the mat any day of the week and it’s perfectly calm and comfortable. When I watch that little my little dude walk out on the mat, oh my gosh, my heart’s at 180. I feel like I’m gonna have a panic attack. Just, you know, it’s combat sport. So that’s part of it, right? Definitely. You know, it’s you know, he’s tried soccer, he’s tried all these other things, but you know, when you go to a combat sport, anything can happen.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:17:40] And it’s one on one.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:17:41] Yeah, there there’s no it is you against them. It’s a point space system. If you lose, it’s because you lost. Right. If they win, it’s because they won. There is no excuses when you come off the mat. You know, sure you can have the normal, I didn’t feel great, or oh, my energy was down, but you still lost. Yeah. And I think that’s incredible for these kids. You know, my son can come off the mats now and say, Man, I got to step my game up.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:18:09] I lost or man, that felt great. Everything was clicking. You know, and and again that’s that’s everyday life of all of us.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:18:17] I was always so about to say that that is the that’s the crude truth is that every day there are winners and there are losers. And how you look at your loss is how you become a winner, in my opinion. Yeah. But for that, it there’s no no middleman, no nothing. Like you just said, it’s you win or loss. And I’ve, you know, our our I I’ll say our good friend, but you you two are really good friends. JP Warren, you know, he’s always trying to get me to do that. Brazilian jujitsu. But all I can think about being a a young father is I remember when we were growing up, we loved, you know, jumping bikes, you know, with BMX. And my parents would sit there and we’d be like, hey, watch us, right? You know, and we get higher. So I can’t imagine the ex anxiety or the nerve that they felt as they’re watching us on the street, right? You know, do these things. So that’s the only comparison I have is watching my three and a half year old on one of those little balance bicycles, going like, oh, don’t hurt. So I can’t imagine what you’re going through as a father to deal with that.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:19:16] Deal with that. Honestly, Bray, I think the I think the comparison’s pretty much the same. I mean, I I watch my son ride his dirt bike around and every time he wants to do something a little bit crazy on it, it’s like oh my gosh, what’s happened? What are you doing? And it’s all stuff I used to do as a kid and with no fear. And now I see my son do it and I’m like

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:19:35] You kind of syringe, right?

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:19:36] He dumped the bike. I gotta go check on him and at the end of the day, they’re let them be kids.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:19:41] Yeah.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:19:41] You know, they’re they’re gonna do it. Sure, there’s a chance they can get hurt. I just don’t want ’em to get hurt so bad that they can’t recover from it. Yeah. You know.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:19:47] Yeah.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:19:48] Little broken bone here, some stitches there, a bloody, you know, finger or nose or something I can live with. But you know, as long as it’s as long as it’s there, you know, it’s like I always I tell young, really like people who are talking about having kids is like, you know, some of the things that you’re gonna be challenged with is you’re gonna have to let your kid get hurt every now and then.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:20:07] And I don’t mean that in a bad like serious, but it’s like, how do you teach a kid what hot is? You can’t.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:20:14] They just have to touch it.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:20:15] And you have to tell them, Yeah, that’s hot.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:20:17] Now you know what it is. You know, it’s no different than riding dirt bikes or the balance bike as a three year old. It’s they’re gonna find out when they put that that tire into the curb that they’re gonna fall off of it. And it’s you can’t always be there to catch them.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:20:29] Yeah.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:20:30] You know, so they start to understand risk and and I love that about it, watching them learn.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:20:35] You know, you you talk about what you’re sharing with other people. You’re part of the exec crew, which is also a sponsor of of the crude truth, but you’re like the mentor of this exec crew, and this is your second year there. What are you excited about? And and what are you excited about learning from all these other individuals? Because it’s a mastermind class, basically. What are you excited about? Because when I look at you, I’m like, you know, write that all like what else do you have to learn? Right? You know, that’s that’s you know, just the the kid and me looking at Jim Holmes, going, what else does this guy have to learn? Right. But like my father, always learning, always learning. So what are you excited about? And what are you excited to bring to these guys that a lot of them I feel like have not walked in your shoes yet? Some of them are on their way, but does that make sense? Like, I don’t want to talk about it. I think so, but

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:21:25] I I think so, but I I don’t think I bring as much as I don’t bring as much to the table as all of the group brings for me. And that’s what’s what’s incredible about it is we all have different life experiences that led us to similar places in terms of of business success. Some in oil and gas, some outside of oil and gas, some taking over family businesses, some started businesses, you know, from the ground up. You know, I have a family business.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:21:53] I’ve started oil and gas companies. I’ve worked for large, publicly traded companies, been all over the world. You know, so I I think a lot of it is I’ve made a lot of mistakes along the way. So being able to recognize as many of those mistakes as possible and learn from them. So you’re not repeating mistakes. So I I think a lot of what I would bring, what I do bring to the exec crew when we get the chance to get together. And that’s that’s not always easy as well, because we’re in a bunch of different cities. Oh yeah. We haven’t been as proactive as we should on getting together on, you know, virtually, which JP, you need to get on that, get everybody together again. I know you’re coming for me, but I’m gonna beat you to it. But there’s just, you know, the the whole point of exec crew is we bring life experiences to the table. Right. At any point in time, any one of us as business leaders or family leaders. Or experiencing some type of challenge. Yeah. Most of the time what you find is in executive groups is that no one wants to admit it or talk about it. Right. You want to go into these meetings thinking that you know everything. Or, yeah, I’ve gotten through stuff before. I can get through this one also. That’s that’s not the case and it’s not the easiest path forward. You know, it’s having a group like this is is no different than reading books, listening to podcasts. They’re just live.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:23:14] Right, you get to you get to actually interact and say, you know, I can see how that applies to what I’m going through right now. Can we dive into that a little bit?

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:23:22] You know, and sometimes when they dive into it, they realize that they could have done it better. Which is which is even more impactful. You know, now we’re getting down multiple levels to the root of some of this stuff and understanding why we even got into those positions to begin with.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:23:35] Right.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:23:36] You know, sometimes it’s it’s employee situations. Sometimes it’s how do I break into this new this new market? It could be an international market. Not everybody has experience in all the international markets that we want to go play in. So how do you tap into somebody that’s already been there and done that?

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:23:51] Yeah.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:23:52] Either successfully or unsuccessfully, you’ll learn a lot from that.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:23:56] You know, w when you’re looking at all these guys and and you’re building your company, or better yet, when you’re looking at investments, what what are you looking at? Like what what obviously everybody’s always about like how am I gonna get my money back? But but really what are you looking at when you’re looking at your investments or when you even started LFS chemistry? What were y’all looking at?

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:24:17] So so two different two different parts there, right? One when we’re when we were putting the seed money in to start LFS, the the small group that we started with, we knew we could do better on a chemistry front. Like we knew we had something to offer the markets that had not necessarily been done before, right? We all came from in in our case, several of us came from the same backgrounds, from the same companies and some from a few other companies. But it was how do we piece this together and really attack a market with a chemistry proposition that the oil field hadn’t necessarily seen before?

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:24:52] Right.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:24:53] While it that’s extremely intriguing and exciting, it’s also a pretty big mountain to climb. You know, the oil field is historically bad about adopting new technology that nobody wants to be first.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:25:04] You know, hey, go sell it to my neighbor and then come back and talk to me. And that’s that’s just not how you grow a you know, that’s not how you grow a business. It’s not how you launch new technology. So for us, we were blessed. We had a couple of early adopters. We had those really faithful people that believed in what we were going to be doing and they they bought in right out of the gates. They loved the entire idea of it. So that and that’s how you launch in oil field chemistry anyway, right? If you don’t have that, you’re gonna be you’re gonna be stuck for a long time.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:25:34] Right.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:25:35] From a personal investment standpoint, it’s always people. Yeah. Sure, I can read the business plans. Business plans are great. It tells me usually half truths. You know, oh, I’m gonna get a 10x return over the first three years or whatever the business plan may state. We all know that that’s

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:25:53] After

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:25:54] That’s not exactly accurate, right? It’s you’re hoping to get about half whatever they’re presenting. And and that’s okay. You know, but but for me it’s more about if I’m investing in a in a new company or a minerals investment like you’re doing.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:26:08] It’s more about who’s behind it. There’s oil everywhere. Yeah. Can you go get it economically? And do I believe that you can go do that? Yeah. If I if the answer to those are yes, and do I like you? You know, is so you know, somebody that I’m putting money behind, then I I want to know that you’re trustworthy, that you’ve got a good heart, you know, and it’s ethics and morals play a a huge part of that. So if if you don’t have those and check those boxes, I’m not interested.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:26:36] Even if I miss out on a on a deal that I could retire in six months. It’s it’s just not worth it to me.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:26:43] Yeah. You know, have you ever been a part of any deals like that to where, you know, to where it it brought you to where you are today in in in your level and in your list to check off? Because everybody has a list, you know. How have you have you had an experience like that that you can lightly talk about?

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:27:00] You know, most of my investments like we were talking about at lunch have been pretty small, right? I’m not it’s not like I’ve got millions to throw around and just forget about it. I still have a young family. That seems to be my largest financial investment.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:27:13] That’s a good But but that’s but that’s a good thing in my opinion. I mean it’s anyway, keep going. So sorry.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:27:19] No, but you know, you run into the, you know, do you put money into a family business, for example? You’re a good a great example of that, right? You’re you’re in a family business. Yeah. For a lot of families, that’s one of the hardest decisions to to make or not make. You know, I I’m not a huge believer in investing in family or loaning family money.

 

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:27:41] ‘Cause if you do it, you pretty much know you’re not getting it back. That’s how I’ve always been told and that’s how it stuck with me. I do think there’s a lot of tremendous success cases like like your company. Is probably a pretty good example of that, right? I’m sitting across from one that That lives it and breathes it.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:27:57] But I don’t think you would be sitting there in your company if you didn’t believe in what the family was capable of and what everybody else in the company was capable of. So, you know, sure I’ve had small ones, you know, high risk that you know, I went ahead and dove into knowing it probably wasn’t gonna work, but that’s why they were small investments. You know, it’s a lot of the big investors out there, you know, invest ten times hoping to win one.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:28:25] Right, it’s or even more than that sometimes and I can’t I don’t wanna do that. So I’m more like a one in a hundred is gonna be risky.

 

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:28:33] Yeah. So and I’m still trying to hit a hundred.

 

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:28:36] So I still have a ways to go before I’m ready for another another risky one. Right. But you know, the risky ones for me have always been a family or a friend.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:28:45] It’s always a

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:28:46] Yeah.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:28:47] And it’s not that they’re doing anything dishonest. It’s just I it’s hard to ask the really difficult questions. Yep. You know, and and not be the friend or the family member. So I tend to just avoid those.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:29:00] Gotcha.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:29:01] And I guess I’m also fortunate that most of my family has nothing to do with anything I would invest in, so but

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:29:08] Well, I I wanna switch gears and ask you. So we’re we’re in the as we record, we’re in the final quarter of the year. Where do you see service companies? ‘Cause that’s what LFS is in the oil and gas space. Where do you see service companies going here over over the next, you know, four months and into twenty twenty six, Jeff?

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:29:24] Sha I think service companies in general are gonna need to buckle down. I think it’s gonna get a little bit worse before it gets better and I know but nobody wants to say that or hear that, but it’s just you’ve got everything from OPEC plus repl releasing more oil. Every it seems like everything we’re trying to do right now is to drive down oil prices with the exception of implementing some tariffs and

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:29:44] Right.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:29:44] And sanctions, which those aren’t enough to offset the reduced demand that we have for for hydrocarbons around the world.

 

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:29:51] So I you know, I think the next six months are gonna be are gonna be pretty challenging for a lot of companies. We’re seeing that aggressively right now. We’re seeing pricing that we haven’t seen since COVID.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:30:03] Yeah.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:30:03] And I mean the the heart of the lockdowns when nothing was going on in the old field?

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:30:07] Sure.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:30:08] Matter of fact we’re hearing of some service pricing below pricing that was that was out there in you know April, May, June of twenty twenty.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:30:16] Yeah.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:30:16] And that’s a pretty scary place to be as a service company.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:30:19] Wow, yeah.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:30:19] You know, that that speaks to some cash flow challenges, which you’d never want to have in a company. You know, cash cash flow is king.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:30:27] Yeah, cash flow is king, amen.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:30:29] It means that companies aren’t adjusting fast enough or they didn’t plan ahead well enough for this, right? You st you still have the typical oil field. Times are good, we’re gonna take on debt. Oh, times are bad, how do we pay for the debt? We take on more debt.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:30:43] And and that catches up to you. And we see that across the board in a lot of companies. It’s one of the other reasons it’s great to be a private company. Yeah. You know, so our like our company’s financials aren’t aren’t public. They’re not out there. But, you know, we also when we started LFS, we had a we had a plan for this. You know, we weathered COVID as a nine month old company. True. That is true. I mean, frack went down to almost nothing for a couple of months, and we still weathered that storm and we came out without any debt. Yeah. We’re gonna weather this one just fine. We’re actually, you know, we’re blessed. Again, the entire team is working harder than they’ve ever worked before. Yeah. And that’s what it takes, is is everybody running, running lean and and outworking everybody else to sell the value proposition. You know, and the so you know, a lot of service companies aren’t in the same position we’re in. A lot of service companies sell the same product that their competitor sells.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:31:39] Maybe they have a little twist on it and that’s that’s fine. That’s that’s the position they’re in. A lot of what we sell is something you don’t have to have to complete a well, for example. Right. So a lot of our v our technology, you don’t have to have it to complete a well. But we need you to want it and see the value in that. So that makes that sales cycle pretty challenging in some cases.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:31:59] I mean if I can just for you know, and and I’m not trying to over embellish but I mean if I can use your chemicals and go for fifty barrels a day to a hundred barrels a day, that’s a no brainer.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:32:07] And that’s our

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:32:08] For you. Exactly. So today was just a great impromptu talk. I’m excited that you’re going to be at the Permian Basin International Oil Show. And there we’re going to kind of dive back into LFS chemistry, almost come full circle. Because I know with the very first time you came on, that’s really what we talked about. But what a better place to not not talk about all the great chemicals, what are y’all are doing, and exactly dive into more of what y’all are up to. And so as we kind of wrap up here, I just want to see if you had any messages for anybody out there and just kind of see what you got going on in the future.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:32:47] Well, right, that was a that was a great lead in.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:32:50] Yeah.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:32:50] ‘Cause you know exactly where I’m gonna go with this. And that is, you know I think it was a podcast or two ago that JP did where he ended it with, I’m coming for you, Jim Holmes.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:32:59] Oh, he wanted you on the mat.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:33:00] And he never did, which just tells me that he might have been slightly intimidated and a little bit of a keyboard warrior there. So JP, dude, I’m coming for you. I was after a call out. You call him a keyboard? I did call him a keyboard warrior. You see how many LinkedIn posts that guy makes? Holy cow.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:33:19] That’s our that’s that’s that those are those are fighting words right there. JP I’m sorry about that, so we’re gonna edit that. We’re gonna edit that we’re really not gonna edit that out of that. No. Well, Jim, for those individuals that are looking for LFS chemistry and want to get in contact with you guys, how can they do that?

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:33:38] Again the best site the best way to do that is either through LinkedIn. You can catch all of our contact information there. Obviously LFS Chemistry incorporated on LinkedIn or www.lfschemistry.com. That is LFS, not IFS. We get that quite a bit. I don’t know why. But that’s the best way to get in touch with us, unless you know one of the one of the other guys’ phone numbers by heart. I don’t, so I’m not gonna repeat ’em all right now.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:34:06] Well, sir, again, I cannot thank you enough for for coming on today and continuing to be a a prime great sponsor of the Crew Truth. I remember just when I asked you, you’re like, Oh, yeah, let’s do it. I hope we bring value to what y’all are doing. And I do know that y’all bring value to all y’all’s clients and what y’all are doing is environmentally safe and it actually helps the American people because it gets more production out of those oil wells. So thank you so much.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:34:32] And soon to be in a Pecos country, well.

 

Rey Treviño III, The Crude Truth Host [00:34:34] Well, there we go. I love it off hook now. Well, for those out there, if you got any questions for Jim, please let me know. Or as my son likes to call him, Mr. Jim. And Jim, again, thank you so much, sir. And and thank you for lunch. And to all our listeners out there, thank y’all as always, and we’ll see you again on another episode of The Crude Truth.

 

Jim Holmes, Executive at LFS Chemistry [00:34:56] Again, the Crew Truth would like to thank today’s sponsors LFS Chemistry, NAPE Expo, Air Compressor Solutions, Sandstone Group, Exec Crew, Texas Star Alliance, PECOS Country Operating, and Real News Communication Network.

 

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