'Nobody calls me mister.'

Nation's Business, Dec, 1997

Walter E. Blessey Jr. comes across as friendly, concerned, and decent. But he's no softy. His gentlemanly manner belies a core of toughness and determination.

Blessey, 53, owns Blessey Marine Service, Inc., a tug and barge operator based in Harahan, La., outside New Orleans. His barges carry asphalt, oil, gasoline, and petrochemicals for clients such as Mobil, Ashland, and Marathon, sailing from Texas to Florida and up the Mississippi and Ohio rivers and other waterways.

He cares deeply about the environment, about safety, about good customer service, and about his employees. It's not uncommon for him to have lunch on his boats or just ride along to develop and maintain good relationships with the captains and crews.

He says they tell him, "The company I used to work for, the only time the boss man came out was to fire somebody, chew somebody out, and leave. They never came out and had lunch with us, spent the night on the boat, or said, `Hey, guys, you're doing a great job. The boat looks great. Appreciate what you do.'"

To his employees, Walter Blessey is "Walter," he says. "I'm not `Mister.' Nobody calls me Mister."

Such informality is part of his genuinely earned nice-guy image. On the other hand, probably no one stands more firmly behind his captains' right to make the judgment call on when it's too windy, too foggy, or otherwise unsafe to proceed. After one customer kept screaming at a captain, via radio, to proceed despite high seas, says Blessey, "we finally told them we wouldn't do business with them anymore."

Years ago, Blessey learned the oil-trading and -transportation business when he worked for Middle South Utilities, now Entergy Corp., buying oil for its plants in four states. Looking for an opportunity to "control my own destiny," he says, he left the utility business in 1973 and started and managed an oil-trading company for a group of backers for the next five years.

He used his savings to go out on his own in 1978, starting Blessey Enterprises, Inc. At first he concentrated on oil trading, but he began diversifying into barges, tugboats (called simply "boats" in the industry), and real estate.

Initially, he chartered the vessels to others, hoping someday to become an operator, as he is now. By 1983, the marine business had four boats and 31 barges. But the collapse of the oil industry that year threw Blessey's industry--and the oil states--into what he views as a five-year depression.

Blessey also had to endure lengthy litigation that he initiated. An employee of his bank had repossessed another company's barges and then arranged for them to be put to use, generating revenue for the bank. Unbeknownst to the bank, however, the employee, whose arrangement undercut a deal Blessey had made with a customer, had acted with information that had been supplied by Blessey-a clear violation of fiduciary responsibility to Blessey. Blessey fought back.

The nearly five years of litigation proved to be a blessing, says Blessey, "because I got a nice settlement, and I'm a lot tougher as a businessman. I'm a lot more sure I can survive, sure I can prevail, sure that if I'm right, I'm going to go to the mat, no matter what it takes."

By the late 1980s, with the settlement in his pocket and the upturn in the economy, Blessey was well on his way again. Today, the 180-employee company owns 43 barges and 17 boats and does $25 million to $30 million a year in business.

From the company's beginning, Blessey has used only double-hull barges, which reduce the risk of oil or chemical spills. Such vessels have two "skins" separated by about 2 feet of air. If there's an accident, chances are that only the outer hull will be pierced and no contaminant will pollute the waterways.

Blessey's concern for the environment is a pricey one. Double-hull barges cost about 70 percent more than their single-hull counterparts. A petrochemical barge with vapor-recovery systems can cost $1.6 million. Still, Blessey must compete on price. Customers often don't seem to care that his barges are less likely to spill, Blessey says; they just want to see a lower price.

Eight years ago, continuing to diversify, Blessey acquired a car dealership, Crescent City Motors, and several years later he started another dealership. This year, he bought five dealerships from Tom Benson, owner of the New Orleans Saints football team. The dealerships together bring in more than $250 million a year.

Blessey believes in creating a corporate culture that establishes the principles that everyone will follow. He speaks of a certain captain who treats deckhands not as "scumbags" but as people with dignity.

He recalls riding with the captain off Florida. The captain would say, "George, when you get a chance, could you please check the engine oil level? Thank you."

It's so easy to treat people that way instead of yelling at them, Blessey says. It is "just so much better a way to live."