Building the Business

Getting his feet wet 40 years ago assisting his father — the founder — Winston "Winky" Moore, Ronald Moore took over Moore’s Well Drilling in 1993. After faithfully working until age 82, Winston’s death coincided with aging equipment straining the well drilling, pump service, and water treatment business. Solving their troubles meant abandoning well drilling.

Through the years family members worked together to keep Winston's dream of a successful well drilling company alive. Ron's daughter Tabatha Westberry subbed out well drilling while suggesting her husband leave his outside sales job and return to the industry he’d been in for 23 years. Chris Westberry joined Tabatha in March 2019.

“We’ve been working to build the business back up and get back to what we’d been doing for years — drilling wells,” Chris said. 

Their plan to end the hiatus from well drilling required a rig and bringing Ron out of retirement. The last time the company had purchased a drill rig was 20 years ago. To mitigate the risk of the expense, they opted to go with a refurbished DM250 versus a brand new rig.

“We’d been out of drilling for three years and to jump into the price of a new rig right off the bat felt too risky,” Chris said. “You also have to remember, we were going from a 1984 rig to a 2006 refurbished rig — so to us it’s brand new.”

The conservative decision has certainly begun to pay off.

“We got the rig in March 2020 and it’s been wide-open ever since,” Chris said. “We’re booked six to eight-weeks out. The only time it sits is on the weekends, and here lately I’ve been drilling on Saturday.”

The DM250 not requiring a CDL contributed to their choice.

“I don’t have two guys out on the rig and water truck who both have a CDL,” Chris said.

The ease of use and ability to get into tighter spaces also pushed them toward the DM250.

“For three years I watched the company we subbed to run their DM250 and compared it to how Grandpa worked for all those years — we’d been doing it the hard way,” Tabatha said. “The way the machine is set up makes it less cumbersome on the driller and helper as a whole. Just makes life easier.”

Their new driller picked up running the DM250 within a day.

"It’s a very easy piece of equipment to run,” Chris said. “It’s all there in front of you, labeled. Now that we have a driller again, my father-in-law can go back to retirement.”

Having done the research they put the DM250’s capabilities to the test drilling deeper wells.

“We knew from the company we’d been subbing out to that they had completed 480-foot wells,” Chris said. “I was a little skeptical it would complete the 500 and 520-foot wells, but it didn’t have any troubles.”

When it does come to troubles, they know someone is available to answer questions or supply parts — critical to continued business growth.

“The DRILLMAX^® [by Geoprobe^®] service team knows what they’re doing and who to call to get answers,” Tabatha said. “Todd has been great — a wealth of knowledge. If he doesn’t know the answer, he has it to me by the end of the day or the next day. The DRILLMAX^® [by Geoprobe^®] service team works well together and is easy to work with.”