April 2002 | Vol.4 Issue 7

Carrie Collins Knows the Drill For Success

The Professional and Business Woman's Journal Carrie Collins knows the entrepreneur's drill for success: See the hole, fill the need and, in the process, do whatever it takes to be the best...Nonetheless, the co-founder and president of DRAGIN Drilling Inc. is amazed at the risk she and co-founder David Quagliaroli took in 1996 when they started their own innovative drilling solutions company.

It's not that Collins ever wrung her hands over DRAGIN's prospects. The Wareham-based company's reputation for state-of-the-art technology and above-and-beyond service has proved from the start that digging deep is well worth the effort.

Instead, it's the more cautious accountant in the now-seasoned entrepreneur that has the once blindly enthusiastic engineer shaking her
head. "Looking back at it, I think we were crazy, but at the time we thought were completely rational," she
says. "We had it in our minds how we were going to build the business and with what equipment. It didn't
seem overwhelming at all."

DRAGIN--an acronym for Deep Remedial And Groundwater Investigation Needs--provides a full range of
innovative and conventional environmental, geotechnical, construction, landfill and water supply drilling
services. What sets the company apart it its ability to customize rigs, tools and techniques and, as a result,
provide exemplary yet cost-effective service- attributes the co-founders found lacking out out in the field.

Collins and Quagliaroli met in 1991 on a lengthy Cape Cod military base remedial project, where they
interfaced for five years. Collins was the engineer overseer of any drilling work on behalf of her
employers, first Camp, Dresser & Mckee and then Stone & Webster. Quagliaroli was the vice president of
an environmental drilling company.

Contamination was turning up deeper than the rigs at the time could drill-- "anything beyond 200 feet was
taboo," Collins says--and so they figured that they could address the problem and provide better service
by designing their own equipment and developing new techniques. When the prospect of taking on a tricky Big Dig project came their way, they jumped at the opportunity to break into the industry with an approach all their own.

"Coming from the engineering side, I saw what all engineers were looking for:the attention to detail and a little more care than what had been done," Collins says. "David knew he could work with a particular rig manufacturer to redesign its largest rig, providing for higher torque and thereby enabling us to drill even deeper. This rig is still the only one of its kind."

To augment the heightened power, DRAGIN added the first string of true 24-inch outside diameter augers (compared to 12 inches at the time) to its equipment list as a way to also drill the widest hole. Precision was magnified by developing a new "dual auger abrasion system" to eliminate the prevalent problems of borehole leaching and heaving.

Within the first six months, DRAGIN had three large contracts: one on the site where the co-founders had met, a Big Dig dewatering project, and work on the MWRA MetroWest Tunnel project,Innovation, whether for their government or private consultant work, was the co-founders' motto from the beginning.

Since one section of the Big Dig project was under the elevated artery, for example, DRAGIN fabricated a low-overhead mast for one of its rigs so drilling could continue at full capacity despite the height limitations. In another section, the site was already excavated, so they fashioned a suspended platform that allowed the entire drilling crew to work safely and comfortably over the opening.

Bootstrapping with conventional financing, the DRAGIN co-founders relied on family to take the plunge with them. Collins' father, master welder Doug, could--and still does--fabricate anything Quagliaroli could devise. Her brother, Todd, left Quagliaroli's former crew for his new one, and her mother, Dianne, managed the office and the books.

"Basically, we were all doing field work for the first six months or so," Collins says. "We had one other laborer now and then. I operated one of the pieces of equipment on the Central Artery and the MWRA projects. As time evolved and we hired more full-time drillers, I came out of the field and into the office full-time, focusing more on finances and business development."

After two years, DRAGIN was up to speed with its current 13 employees: four crews out in the field and four--including both co-founders--in the office. The company was up to $2 million in sales in its third and fourth years. Last year, DRAGIN brought in $2.4 million in sales.

"We're at a different level now, where we're not so much hands-on management," Collins says. "We now have a full-time operations manager who does the day-to-day overseeing, so it's evolving for us. We're going through a different angle, certainly, than when we started, when we were the owners/operators."

These days, Collins is responsible for the financial end of the business--hence her honed accountant's point of view. She works with Quagliaroli on sales and proposals; in addition, Quagliaroli oversees the technical aspects of each drilling project.

To win projects, they capitalize on their solutions specialization to beat out the larger national companies and the smaller local firms. Although most of their jobs have been in New England, they have landed projects in New York and New Jersey because only they could perform the tasks-at-hand.

All along, Collins and Quagliaroli have kept to their original mission by continually testing and developing ground-breaking equipment and techniques.

Their newly patented Multi-Media Straddle Sampling System reduces sampling work from two boreholes to one.

Their four rigs--the last one came online in December--are customized to take on different terrain; one has tank-like traction, for instance; another has the all-terrain vehicle's fat wheels.

They have developed a new method for venting landfills--a hot commodity--that has become the preferred method. And in the last two years, they've diversified into residential well and municipal water supply work.

"We're in the growing pains again," Collins says, "where we're fluctuating between four and five crews as we increase our work-load. We'll probably stay with the four crews though for now. Everybody's tucked their wings in, waiting to see what the economy's doing. I think staying where we are is a good business decision."