Oct. 27, 2009, wasn’t the happiest of days for Darron Anderson.
It was the day his company, Express Energy Services, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
But for Anderson and the employees at Express Energy, it was far from the demise of the company; it was a rebirth of sorts. In just nine weeks, the company emerged from the reorganization prepared to do better than before.
“Emerging out of Chapter 11 on Jan. 1, 2010, I would say by the end of Q1, the Chapter 11 process was pretty far in our rearview mirror,” says Anderson, CEO of the $300 million oilfield services company. “I always tell people I have the greatest job in the world. Since taking over as CEO in the end of 2008 in a very, very depressed market and leading a company into a Chapter 11 process and successfully leading a company out of that process and now watching the company grow and flourish. It has been such a wonderful environment.”
A bankruptcy doesn’t create what most people would consider a wonderful work environment, but Anderson and his 1,475 employees survived the process and have gone on to good results.
Here’s what he learned along the way.
