Small Business Impact: Leslie Bertucci, R&D Enterprises

Small businesses in Louisiana have faced more than their fair share of disasters, including hurricanes, a struggling economy, and the aftereffects of the BP oil spill. However, the biggest disaster to hit these businesses, according to small business owner Leslie Bertucci, is purely political and completely reversible—President Barack Obama’s six-month ban on deepwater drilling.

Bertucci and her husband, Dan Ness, own R&D Enterprises, which leases specialty tanks and racks that allow the safe transfer and storage of drilling chemicals on oil platforms hundreds of miles off the coast. “There are two big issues on a rig—safety and space. We help with both,” Bertucci says.

Bertucci has leased equipment on 23 of the 33 rigs affected by the moratorium, all of which are sitting idle. “As long as the moratorium is intact, I’m not earning any revenue,” she says. She estimates that her revenue has dropped by 80% since the moratorium went into effect in May.

At the same time, R&D’s operating costs for items such as warehouses, payroll, electricity, and loans continue to roll in. “I have 43 vendors that we order supplies from every month, items such as industrial hoses, and I have to pay them,” says Bertucci. “When you contemplate the
trickle-down effect, it’s tens of thousands of businesses being affected, even businesses not directly related to oil drilling.”

Bertucci and her husband took themselves off the payroll a few months ago in an effort to cut costs. So far, she has not had to make the difficult decision of which of her 14 employees to lay off. “But we can’t go on indefinitely,” she warns.

For now, businesses in the Gulf are “at the mercy of our administration, and I don’t think they have a clue of the effect their actions are having,” she says. “I intend to overcome this, but there are many businesses that just won’t. We don’t want to apply for some handout. We just want to get back to work.”