Altrad Hertel is a leading international industrial services company and today around 10,000 professionals all over the world support the need of customers with a coordinated range of customized solutions.
Pat O’Donnell has been the Regional Director with Hertel Ireland for the past 8 years, having originally started with the company as project manager in 2005.Building Ireland heard more from Pat about Hertel, the Altrad Group & the Hertel Irish division.
Hertel’s beginnings date back to 1895 in Amsterdam providing insulation and seals to the marine industry.
Over the next 120 years Hertel grew and became a global brand including operating in Ireland since 2001. In 2015, Altrad Group completed the acquisition of Hertel as they saw Hertel as a world leader in access solutions, insulation & corrosion protection & enabled Altrad to be a major player in the multi-discipline industrial services arena.
“We’re a service provider that is a leading international, multi-disciplinary, industrial services company operating in over 30 countries,” explained Pat.
“Altrad Hertel have established operations in Europe, Caspian, Asia, Australia and the Middle East.
“Altrad Hertel Ireland Ltd. supports its customers with access solutions, insulation, corrosion protection and specialist services, working for customers in the Oil and Gas, Energy, Pharmaceutical and Food Process industries.
“The company employs over 250 people in Ireland through its bases in Dublin, Cork and Limerick and works on projects across the island.
“Hertel pursues a strategy of deepening relationships with its customers, broadening its service offerings and strengthening the company’s footprint to deliver the best results.
“Our aim is to save our customers time and money and basically we are a one-stop house for them. We can provide numerous services. We pride ourselves on our flexibility and the ability to provide a nationwide service. Being able to provide a multi-skilled resource is a great benefit to the client.”
Pat doesn’t mince his words when outlining what the company’s success has been built on: “First and foremost, it’s Healthy & Safety. Safety and quality have always been key to our company’s performance and success.
“Indeed ‘Safety first’ is one of the core values of Altrad Hertel and it commits to ‘operate worldwide in a safe and responsible manner with the greatest respect for the health and safety of our employees, contractors, customers, and the communities and environment in which we operate.
“We’re constantly re-evaluating our safety procedures and our safety officers do a fantastic job with a key focus on injury prevention. Retraining is an important part of our approach to health and safety, so we make sure best practice is always followed.”
Hertel Ireland Ltd. since it first entered the NISO awards in 2004, have received yearly recognition to its commitment to safety and for the last two years running named ‘Construction Specialist Contractor of the Year’ a company very much at one with its health and safety culture.
Reliability has always been key to Hertel, with a drive to continuously improve their services in the widest sense of the word.
The company’s clientele in Ireland are amongst some of the most well-known firms in the country, according to Pat, and it’s not hard to understand why.
“Blue chip clients include ESB, Irving Oil in Cork, Aughinsih Alumina & there’s not an engineering company that we haven’t done work for in the country,” said the Regional Director.
“Hertel Ireland Ltd. were very involved with the Corrib project in Mayo and most recently the Waste to Energy project in Poolbeg for the last two years.”
So what is it about Hertel that has their clientele choosing them first ahead of other competitors?
Pat feels it comes down to a number of different attractive qualities for clients, outlining one in particular which earns their trust and keeps them coming back time and time again.
“We’re safe and reliable in what we do. We’re experienced, confident and that goes from management all the way down. So, we’re a confident, reliable service provider and safety is always first for us here,” he said.
As for its origins, Hertel is now almost 120 years in existence and has managed to successfully anticipate and adapt to changes occurring in the world and the markets in which they operate, while preserving its core asset: people.
Now with around 10,000 people of over 50 different nationalities, the programmes Hertel have in place are helping them to achieve an excellent performance.
The company are committed to continuous improvement – an aim of the company which dates all the way back to when it was originally set-up by Alexander Hertel.
Hertel has decades of experience in the Oil & Gas sector and the expertise that they can offer customers remains unrivalled throughout the world.
They deliver safe and efficient services that help customers to achieve goals, be that building the refineries, LNG terminals and tank terminals of the future to meet the continuously growing demand, or providing highly efficient maintenance services for existing assets, increasing uptime and driving value innovation.
Hertel has also has a sound understanding of the challenges faced by the industry, offering a complete package of services – from access solutions, insulation, corrosion protection and mechanical to other specialist services.
The company is well-placed to help customers in the construction and maintenance of new and existing plants worldwide. From construction services including access, insulation and painting to pipe spool pre-fabrication.
Be it clean coal, CCGT, nuclear, renewable or waste-to-energy, process; Hertel provides all of the services that are enabling the latest generation of energy plants to be constructed safely and efficiently.
As for business itself in Ireland, Pat said: “You definitely can see a pick-up in the industry since the middle of last year” and hopes that company’s confidence in Ireland and increased investment trend continues right into 2019.
Taken from Building Ireland Magazine, June 2018, Vol 4 No 5
