A native Coloradoan, Cindy Gettig is, like a lot of out-of-state transplants to the Permian, someone who’s found her place in these parts, and has found plenty to like about her work and the people around her.
Permian people are personable, persevering, and perceptive.
Might we even add perspicacious, too?
The pre-eminence of Permian people keeps getting proven to us time and again. Such as this particular time, when we had a random encounter with a Permian person at a Permian Basin petroleum-type expo.
It was our expo, in fact. The Midland Energy Expo put on by Zachry Publications, publisher of PBOG.
And when we needed someone to pose for us out front of the entrance to the Horse Shoe Arena, where this show was held, to serve as our cover photo for this issue, we asked the fine folks at Western LLC, one of the exhibitors, if they would nominate someone from their ranks for that role. And it was one Cindy Gettig, now the subject of this article, whom they posited.
It was Gettig who unintentionally gave us the inspiration to add a bit of Western “flair” to this issue. (See for instance our article on “Construction ‘Cowboys,’” on p. 38.) It started with her business card—right there on it are the words “Western values / Western Spirit / Western Common Sense.” We liked that attitude. And we liked the cowboy hardhats that Gettig and her peers had there at their booths, and the fact that we got Gettig to oblige us by donning one for our cover shot.
Turns out she was a rodeo queen in her high school days.
“I grew up in a small town in Colorado called Elizabeth,” said the personable Gettig, who serves as marketing and development coordinator at Western. “I was really big into 4H and rodeos and horses. Was a local rodeo queen growing up, very involved in doing the rodeo queen thing. Loved it.”
Gettig attended Northeastern Junior College in Sterling, Colo., earning an Associates Degree there, before moving to Odessa and enrolling at University of Texas at the Permian Basin (UTBA), where she earned a Bachelor’s Degree, studying communication and psychology. “UTPB is a great school,” she said.
At Western LLC, she teams with about ten other employees who together comprise this design-build firm that is currently building the corporate aviation hangars at the Midland International Airport [see page 32].
Western LLC takes clients “from concept to completion,” as Gettig puts it. “We are with you the whole way,” she said. “We sit down with clients and we design a facility based exactly on their needs for current operations as well as for future operations. A lot of companies are expanding so fast that by the time they get into the facilities, they are already outgrowing them. So we design them in a way that expansions are easier. We’re really good at working around our clients’ budgets specifically so that we save them money. And we take care of things like permit documents and code requirements for them. I think we just set our clients’ minds at ease, knowing that we’re there to take care of things that they need.”
As marketing and development coordinator, Gettig works largely in client relations. “I’m usually the contact person for our clients, for any of their needs, including setting up meetings with architects, or with our design team, to design facilities. I help our Marketing Director [Phi Whitaker] to develop marketing plans for our new developments. I do a lot of the market research, write press releases. She [Whitaker] handles most of the design work. I do much of the distributing of the marketing materials and the job of hanging site signs up at developments.”
Gettig also works with various local entities, such as the Chamber of Commerce, the Desk and Derrick Association, and the PBPA, promoting Western LLC, community projects, and local industry. She gives tours of Western’s different developments to potential clients. The company also converts raw land into real estate developments. “We also do lay down yards, truck washes, whatever a company needs. And of course we design it to be tailored to their current and future expansion needs.
“Midland grows so fast,” she added.
Asked what she has learned from her work that has been most useful to her, Gettig went straight to the idea of forming connections.
“It’s all about making the right connections with people and keeping those connections alive,” she said. “I mean, friendships—the people you build relationships with—are everything. You never know when you meet somebody, where that will go. Just today [at the Midland Energy Expo] I ran into a guy that I met last year at a show in Corpus Christi. He came by Midland [and the Expo] and we had lunch and we caught up on different markets. He’s from San Antonio and, since we [Western LLC] are working on developments down in the Eagle Ford, he gave me some insights into what’s going on in regards to growth and activity in that market. So it’s all about building those relationships with people that are absolutely key to opening new doors. You never know, when you meet somebody, if you might need their services later on down the road.”
Kari Honea, an operations manager with Midland-based SBM Earthmoving, knows Gettig well and thinks highly of her. “She is great—easy to work with, always available when you need her,” said Honea. “She’s very good at what she does. I love Western LLC—they are one of the companies out there that you can trust to do what they say they’ll do.”
For more on Western LLC, which is a PBPA member, see our Construction feature (p. 30-34) in this issue.
As for her experience at the Midland Energy Expo, apart from being an (impromptu) photographer’s model—and a very persevering and perspicacious one at that—Gettig said she had fun at the event. “It was one of the more laid-back shows,” she said. “We really enjoyed it and it was good to see other companies that are in Midland, to learn about different companies that I didn’t know were in the area.”