Houston Republic

It is, he said, “an eerie, lonely feeling.”

Alegacy founder and executive chairman Bob Nickles was alone at the company’s 90-acre campus just west of Waller about 40 miles northwest of Houston. Normally, it’s a bustling place, with scores of employees producing and shipping skid-mounted natural gas compression equipment.

But the economic downturn caused by the COVID-19 pandemic forced Nickles to send 70 employees home last month. Things took a further turn for the worse this week, he told Houston Republic.

“Since then we’ve had to cut staff further which is truly heart-wrenching, received our PPP loan, which is ultimately helpful to weather this unprecedented event, and as of Tuesday shut down operations temporarily as we’ve had employees test positive for COVID-19,” Nickles said.

A father and son who live together were diagnosed with COVID-19 early this week. Their wife/mother is seriously ill and was in the intensive care unit at the Texas Medical Center in Houston. The men are feeling fine, so far, Nickles said, and have self-isolated at home.

“They’re both, last I know, they’re both fine, ” he said.

The father has two weeks off before he was scheduled to return to work on April 6, but he didn’t feel good, Nickles said. He then tested positive for COVID-19, as did his son. Although they live together, the two men work in separate locations at the large campus. The father is employed in the shop and has not been at work for more than two weeks, reducing the exposure to other employees.

The son works in the office in computer-aided design, so some workers have been around him. That is why the company shut down April 7, and sent 127 employees home.

The campus will be professionally cleaned this weekend and employees are scheduled to return on Tuesday.

“It’s about a full three-day process,” Nickles said. “We’ve been expecting a COVID incident to happen. It would not surprise me we have another incident further down the road, in a few weeks or later.”

Nickles said he has been tested for the coronavirus and will learn the outcome of the test this weekend. He said he feels fine and has been told he does not have the regular flu or strep throat. What he does have is a sick feeling about having to furlough his employees. Nickles said all they can do is wait for business to resume as close to normal as possible.

Last month, he told Houston Republic, that this has been a combination of 9/11 and the Great Recession of 2007-08.

“Absolutely. I still feel that is the case,” Nickles said. “The interesting and incalculable addition on this one is the public health, the public health and the anxiety.”

But Nickles said he is confident his company will still be standing when the pandemic and economic downturn both end.

”We’ve done our assessment and we’ll be fine,” he said. "The question is how long can we get by until our customers are back in business, initiating new orders? It will be real hard. But we will be there, one way or the other.”

Nickles said this is a rough patch but believes there are better days ahead for Alegacy, which was formed in 2013.

“Two of our competitors have closed their doors for good,” he said. “We’re strong, we’ll survive — our hope being our market can come back so we can get all of our great people back to work.”