IN 1995, SHANE Tubre founded Bengal Transportation on a simple business model: moving around equipment.

While serving local businesses by transporting equipment to job sites, he recognized a need for a transportation company that not only could move construction machinery, but all the modules, tanks, vessels and larger equipment being used in plants and other facilities.

“At that point they started to acquire more and more of the specialized transportation equipment—trailers, and larger trucks that could handle heavy haul loads,” says Ben Fromenthal, director of marketing for Bengal. “The longer they were in the market, they began to form relationships with companies where the pieces were getting bigger and they had to utilize cranes to offload them.”

Since then, Bengal has grown into a multidivision company: Transportation, Crane and Rigging, Logistics, and Special Projects.

The company’s mission is to be a turnkey service provider, managing complex equipment transportation processes from beginning to end, providing a seamless experience for customers while saving them both time and money.

“If we have a customer who wants to ship a large vessel or column to a site, we can manage that piece from start to finish,” says Fromenthal. “We can take it from the fabricator all the way to the site. We will load it on a transporter, transport it to the site, utilize cranes and special equipment to offload it and set it in place—one call to take care of the whole job.”

According to Bengal President John Austin, this ability to focus solely on the customer’s needs is what sets Bengal apart from the competition.

“We are the small guy with the big heart,” says Austin. “We have the advantage of being a privately owned company that doesn’t have to answer to a group of share holders that are only interested in benefiting themselves.”

In an industry where adapting to the needs of customers is essential to success, Bengal’s team prides itself on its philosophy of innovation and problem solving.

“I’ve been in many meetings where a customer is talking about a job and they’ve talked to two other companies that told them it just couldn’t be done,” says Fromenthal. “If you throw that out there to the group of guys that are running the divisions at Bengal, they’re going to figure out a way, just to say they did.”

“Ask anyone who works for Bengal and they will tell you the same thing: We are not afraid of change,” says Austin. “Changes are necessary to grow, and by not getting complacent we are able to adapt to the needs of our employees and our customers.”

Although the bulk of Bengal’s business was founded on local industrial transportation needs, the company’s service area has expanded substantially and now covers all 48 states and up north into Canada.

“We’re basically everywhere we can put a truck,” says Fromenthal. “We’re not limited to anything geographically because we’re not asset-based through logistics. If we can broker it, we can move it.”

While the majority of Bengal’s customers are industrial, the company is currently looking at multiple opportunities to expand into the commercial market. The primary difference between the two sectors is the application of  safety standards, and the length that Bengal has gone to cultivate a culture of safety for its employees will serve it well on the commercial side.

“Safety drives the market, and the requirements on the commercial side aren’t as strenuous as those on the industrial side,” says Fromenthal. “We hold employees to the highest safety standards that they can execute, and we don’t want them on a job site where they become lax or less focused on safety, which is by far the most important thing.”

In spite of the hit that the oil and gas industry has taken in recent years, Bengal has survived the economic downturn by serving a diverse portfolio of clients, including chemical plants, refineries and even renewable energy projects like wind power.

Fromenthal points to the company’s positive growth over the last six years as evidence.

“We didn’t put all our eggs in one basket, and we’re bidding on more work than we ever have right now,” says Fromenthal. “There’s still plenty of opportunities for business out there, and we’re looking forward to securing as much work as we can.”

This year, Bengal is looking to expand its market further by increasing the size of its crane division’s footprint with the acquisition of more property in Texas.

Since the cost of moving hydraulic truck cranes to job sites is a factor in bidding for work, the proximity of the equipment to the target site makes all the difference. 

“It will help us secure more day work on the transportation side—wherever your equipment is, the better you can serve those customers,” says Fromenthal. “The more equipment we can have on site in that market, the more competitive we can be.”

Austin believes that the addition of a hub in Texas will make Bengal more attractive in pricing and in the services it can provide to customers in that region.

“Our roots are here in Louisiana and will always be, but to better serve our customers needs we realize we have to expand the territory in which we can provide the great services we offer,” he explains.

The company also has plans to invest in the purchase of a new crane in 2016. The Terex AC500, a 600-ton hydraulic truck crane, will be the largest hydraulic truck crane in its fleet.

“We’re being very aggressive when it comes to upgrading our equipment and keeping up with the latest technology,” says Fromenthal. “The average age of our cranes is less than five years old.”

The company recently celebrated its 20th year in business and is on a path for future growth.

“With humble beginnings as a small business run out of the owner’s parents’ home, it has been a very rewarding journey to see the company grow to the size we are now,” says Austin. “We believe we are just getting started, and we plan to stay as aggressive and diverse as we can be to grow to the next level.”