Tag Archives: economy in Dickinson

The Oil Boom is Over, How Did the Dickinson Mafia Fare?

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In Dickinson, North Dakota, there is a group of men who own businesses, own properties, are on board of directors, are members of development associations, and are involved in city government, who control much of what goes on in Dickinson.  Though they tell themselves, and each other, that what they decide is for the good of Dickinson, it happens to coincide with what benefits them personally.

In this blog, I have not yet listed the names of the members of the Dickinson Mafia, because I want to be able to write the truth about Dickinson without interference, but it is fairly well known in Dickinson who the members are.  The members of the Dickinson Mafia have each lived in Dickinson for more than twenty years, their individual deeds are well known, and their influence has been seen again and again.

In a recent previous post to this blog, I wrote that prior to 2008, the wages in Dickinson had been very low, this was intentional, this was the work of the Dickinson Mafia.  The purpose of the low wages in Dickinson, was to control the people.  The wages were so low, that the workers could not save any money, they could not get ahead, they were paycheck-to-paycheck people.  The workers could not save enough money to move away from Dickinson.  The workers could not afford to be without a job even for a short time, so if the wages were low at their job, if they were not paid for all of their time, if they were treated badly, they had to stay in that job even if they wanted to quit.  Also, if a worker did quit, he would be “black balled” by the Dickinson Mafia, so he could not get another job.  The workers knew that if they quit a job, the Dickinson Mafia would prevent them from getting another job, so they were scared.  This is what the Dickinson Mafia wanted, keeping most of the people in Dickinson like slaves, unable to get away, unable to get ahead, unable to speak out.

If you are a new resident of Dickinson, and you become acquainted with an older, long time resident of Dickinson, if you ask them in private about the things that I have written in this post, there are several possible reactions that you could get.  They might get very angry about you asking anything about the Dickinson Mafia because they are still afraid.  They might be both angry and embarrassed, they might still feel humiliated about what was done to them.  They might laugh, “Ha ha ha ha, oohh, ha ha ha….” and walk away, thinking it is better to not talk about it.  The only type of long time resident in Dickinson that would talk to you about it, is someone whose anger and stubbornness outweighs their fear.

I did not intend to write such a lengthy introduction to the Dickinson Mafia in this post, this information is given in two previous posts.  Also, I wrote in a previous post that the way the Dickinson Mafia guided the property development in Dickinson, they actually did a good job.  In this previous post, I described that Williston, Watford City, and Bismarck each were made a mess by the wrong type of development in the wrong area, it is hard to drive around town in those three cities.  In contrast, it is still very easy to drive around Dickinson even though there is a great deal of new development.

So how did the Dickinson Mafia fare, now that the Oil Boom is over?  Four of them did very well.  These four that did very well, their families were from Dickinson, and these four sons continued to run their family businesses in a conservative manner, and these businesses did very, very well.  They did begin paying higher wages to their workers, once they saw that they were losing essential workers to the oil field.  These four sons of Dickinson families did financially back at least four new businesses in Dickinson that were very much needed.  So I will admit, that in addition to exercising some beneficial control of development in Dickinson, the Dickinson Mafia did bring at least four greatly needed businesses to Dickinson.

One of the Dickinson Mafia, did not really do so well, in my opinion.  In both his personal, and business life, he saw something that looked attractive, got involved, and controversy followed.  He has had some problems, and it looks to me like he will continue to have problems.  But, he was not from Dickinson.

I would like to point out, that now that the Oil Boom is over, I can not think of any out-of-town person, or out-of-town business that has clearly emerged as a winner.  To date, I have never, never, met an oil field worker that was, or is financially well off.  I can not think of one out-of-town business that is here in Dickinson now, that is doing well.

The out-of-town oil companies, they may have made enough money to be able to afford to shut down operations now, and still have made money overall.  The out-of-town oil field service companies, it will really be close if they made any money now that they have shut down.  The out-of-town real estate developers and property investors, they are probably going to go bankrupt in the next couple of years.

The Dickinson Mafia could have been real estate developers and property investors between 2008 to 2014, probably more easily than anyone else, but they didn’t.  Why didn’t they?  Because they are from here and their families are from here, their families have been successful here for the past fifty years.  The Dickinson Mafia don’t lose money, they make money, again and again over a long period of time, they are not nouveau riche.  The Dickinson Mafia were happy to see out-of-state developers and property investors come here and buy land.  The real estate prices went up and up.  For that matter, the Dickinson Mafia helped the real estate prices go up and up, the Dickinson Mafia made sure that man-camps and temporary housing were not permitted in Stark County, which created a housing shortage.

Out-of-state real estate developers, property investors, and oil field service companies have built commercial buildings, warehouses, houses, and apartment buildings all over Dickinson.  In about one to two years, all of these newly constructed buildings will be selling for about sixty percent of what they cost to build.  At that time, that is when the Dickinson Mafia will buy property.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Different Side of Dickinson, North Dakota

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Throughout this blog, I have mostly been negative about Dickinson:  property owners and managers had been excessively greedy and had taken advantage of everyone from out-of-state, local people and co-workers had been hostile and unfriendly, there is shortage of attractive women, the Dickinson police’s over aggressive pursuit of DUIs cause people to be unable to go out and enjoy drinks at bars and restaurants.  Living in Dickinson, I felt like an illegal immigrant migrant worker, because I was treated like one.  Even though I had a bachelor of science in engineering, and had worked as an engineer, estimator, superintendent, and project manager in several different states, owned a home and business in another state, I was treated like shit by the local ignorant, uneducated, never-been-anywhere people here in Dickinson, because I was from some place else, and they could get away with it, and their natural primitive instinct is to treat people badly.  I explained these things already in this blog.

I currently still recommend that people do not come to Dickinson, North Dakota, at this time.  I came here to make money, and it was easier to make money here, than it was in the state where my home was.  But now, about 60% of the oil field jobs have gone away due to the low price of oil, which has caused other jobs to go away throughout the western North Dakota economy.  I recommend that you do not come to Dickinson at this time not because the people are hostile and unfriendly, but because you would probably have a difficult time getting a job, and housing prices are still very high.

Because of a reduction of in work at my job, and because I did not want to be solely dependent on my employer for income, I brought some of my equipment over to Dickinson, to begin doing some self-employment work.  At first, the Dickinson residents that I offered to do work for, they were negative.  After about one month, I got one project.  I did a good job, three people saw that project, and I got three more projects.  Without doing any advertising, I got about ten more projects, and continue to get phone calls every week.

In my self-employment work, I saw a different side of Dickinson.  All of the people who called me and asked me to come and give them an estimate, they were successful people.  About one-third of these customers were business owners, about one-third were white-collar professionals, and about one-third were blue-collar workers, but they were all successful.  They were intelligent, polite, professional, fair, and often times paid me more than what I charged.

I tried to keep quiet and quickly do my self-employment work, but about one-third of my customers at some point would ask me what I thought of Dickinson and the people here.  I would try to not say anything negative and say very little, but the customers would come out and say to me, “I moved here twenty years ago, the people here have never been friendly to me and my husband, it has been difficult, I don’t have hardly any friends, I had so many friends back where we came from.”  So even though I tried to say very little in order to keep my opinions to myself to be non offensive to customers and potential customers, many of my customers just came out and said that they had had a difficult time in Dickinson because the people were unfriendly.  This was the first time that I heard people that were successful, long time residents, come out and say it.  It made me feel a lot better.  Also, this was the first time after having lived in Dickinson for almost three years, that I wasn’t treated like shit.  In all of the self-employment projects that I have done in Dickinson so far, about fifteen of them, the customers have been very nice to me, they acted like they were happy to see me, happy that I was there, complimented me on my work, thanked me, and most them paid me more than I asked for.  This was a side of Dickinson that I had never seen.

Don’t Come To Dickinson, North Dakota

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Please do not come to Dickinson, North Dakota.  Due to the low price of oil, employers throughout western North Dakota have laid people off, and are continuing to lay people off.  Halliburton, Baker Hughes, Marathon, Schlumberger, Patterson Drilling, and many others have recently let employees go due to reduced work, and trying to cut costs.

In the March 26 edition of the “Dickinson Press”, there was an article that said the amount of drill rigs operating in North Dakota right now is 97, the lowest it has been since February of 2010.  I believe that this article said that the highest rig count was about 270 in 2013.  Elsewhere in this edition of the “Dickinson Press”, was an article about North Dakota hoping to create manufacturing jobs in order to have something for residents of North Dakota to do for employment, but this is a long way off, and just a wish right now.

I was at a community event last night, and one of the event organizers who was speaking to the group, said regarding what the group was doing, that we needed to be mindful that though Dickinson had grown rapidly during the last several years, it was going through a different kind of change right now, and that Dickinson is beginning a period of economic difficulty.

An oil drill rig has about 40 workers directly associated with that particular rig, where that rig goes, they go.  There are about 200 drill rigs that have been parked and are not working in western North Dakota.  That means 8,000 drill rig workers have been laid off.  These are the highest paid workers in the oil field, they make about $100k per year more or less.  Many of these workers are young, many of these workers are from out-of-state.  I think that a lot of them have bought new trucks for themselves, new vehicles for their wives, and have bought  homes back in the states that they came from.  They had the expectation of making $100k per year, for the next several years, so did the car dealers, so did the banks.  Every one of these drill rig workers probably has a least one large truck payment each month, if not two vehicle payments and a house payment.

Because there are about 200 drill rigs that are not working, there are many other trades that are not working.  Excavation and site work contractors that employ equipment truck drivers, dump truck drivers, dozer operators, scraper operators, and laborers are not preparing drill sites.  Fence contractors are not putting up fences at these sites.  Loader operators are not very busy at quarries.  Heavy equipment mechanics, service trucks, tire services are not busy in the oil field.  The water truck drivers do not have work when there is no drilling and fracturing.  The truck drivers who deliver the tank batteries do not have work when there is no fracturing.  There will be less work for the work-over rigs.  There will be less work for the pump jack installers.  There will be less work for the electricians who install the underground electric, instrumentation, controls, and pump jack motors at the well sites.  Much less work in the oil field.

Property owners and mineral rights owners in North Dakota have begun to receive much smaller payments from oil companies for the wells on their property.  The price of oil is down, plus the oil companies don’t want to pump as much oil when the price is down.

Because the North Dakota property owners, truck drivers, heavy equipment operators, heavy equipment mechanics, service truck drivers, fence installers, laborers, electricians, pump jack installers, and rig workers have less money and are spending less money, all the retail stores, car dealers, and restaurants make less money, and are less busy.

In the “Dickinson Press” on Thursday March 26, there were two jobs listed in the Help Wanted section of the newspaper.  At this time of year, one year ago, there would have been about twenty to thirty jobs posted.