The management team of D.F. Barnes Limited. (L-R) Renna Fowler - Manager, Safety & Quality, Torfi Thorarinson - Engineering & Project Management, Jerry Byrne - President & CEO, Catherine Ryan - Office Manager, Jason Fudge - Finance Manager, Doug Byrne - Chairman, Glenn Byrne - VP Operations, and Benny Lee - General Superintendent & Manager - Field Services.

D.F. Barnes Limited Is Recognized
For Business Excellence

(ST. JOHN’S, NL) Newfoundland owned and operated D. F. Barnes Limited has been presented with the St. John’s Board of Trade’s 2004 Business Excellence Award and the Domestic and Export Growth Award. The awards were presented on December 1, 2004, during a ceremony at the Delta St. John’s Hotel and Conference Centre in St. John’s, Newfoundland.

Incorporated in 1932, D.F. Barnes Limited has overcome many challenges and market changes in its seventy-two-year history. In the early sixties, the company, then named E.F. Barnes, focused on shipbuilding and actually built Newfoundland’s first iron ship, the Cobb’s Arm. The ship, then considered the first of its kind, was the largest vessel launched in the port of St. John’s in more than a century.

In 2000, the company was devastated to learn that their lease would not be renewed on the St. John’s waterfront. D.F. Barnes Limited’s management team believed that moving from this location would bring their demise. However, failure was not in the company’s future, and they were able to turn a negative into a positive with an aggressive business plan and a new management team.

Today, D.F. Barnes Limited manufactures, fabricates and repairs a wide variety of steel, aluminum and metal products, machinery and equipment. They have moved from their 3,000-square-foot, harbour-front location and have expanded to a new 20,000-square-foot facility and two additional facilities when required. The company has also grown in both capability and capacity, offering a broader set of skills and services, and a significant amount of their work is now driven by the province’s oil and gas industry.

“We have overcome many obstacles to survive and are no longer a small “mom and pop” operation,” said company president Jerry Byrne. “We have built a world-class team of committed and talented people who put our customers first and themselves last. When that happens anything and everything is possible.”
Byrne also attributes the Award of Excellence and business success to the company’s supportive customers and suppliers as well as to its solid plan for the future.

“After restructuring our management team and implementing a new business plan about three years ago, we experienced unprecedented growth,” explained Byrne. “In fact, D.F. Barnes Limited’s monthly sales are about the same as our yearly sales of less than four years ago. In 2004, our sales increased 92 percent over the previous year and 125 percent from 2002. We have also grown from 10 to 100 people over four years. On one project alone we delivered over 40,000 person hours in less than seven weeks!”

D.F. Barnes Limited’s local oil and gas experience has also opened doors to new international markets, and as a result, they have worked on petroleum projects in Kazakhstan, Dubai, United States and Bolivia.

“We created a new company vision, focusing on marketplace opportunities and investing in personnel and equipment, as well as quality and safety systems. I am truly humbled by this award and proud to say that we are now among the top companies in our field in Atlantic Canada,” added Byrne.