Background

Company founder Jim O'Brien fought his first oil spill in 1969 as an officer with the United States Coast Guard

United States Coast Guard

The United States Coast Guard is a branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven U.S. uniformed services. The Coast Guard is a maritime, military, multi-mission service unique among the military branches for having a maritime law enforcement mission and a federal regulatory agency...

. In 1983 he retired to form his own company, O'Brien's Oil Pollution Service, known as "OOPS Inc.", in Slidell, Louisiana

Slidell, Louisiana

Slidell is a city situated on the northeast shore of Lake Pontchartrain in St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 25,695 at the 2000 census. The Greater Slidell Community has a population of about 90,000...

. O'Brien soon gained fame in the 1980s as the "Red Adair

Red Adair

Paul Neal "Red" Adair was an American oil well firefighter. He became world notable as an innovator in the highly specialized and extremely hazardous profession of extinguishing and capping blazing, erupting oil well blowouts, both land-based and offshore.-Life and career:Adair was born in...

 of oil spill cleanup". O'Brien also helped manage the Exxon Valdez oil spill

Exxon Valdez oil spill

The Exxon Valdez oil spill occurred in Prince William Sound, Alaska, on March 24, 1989, when the Exxon Valdez, an oil tanker bound for Long Beach, California, struck Prince William Sound's Bligh Reef and spilled of crude oil. It is considered to be one of the most devastating human-caused...

 of 1989. Following that event the United States enacted the Oil Pollution Act of 1990

Oil Pollution Act of 1990

The Oil Pollution Act was passed by the 101st United States Congress, and signed by President George H. W. Bush, to mitigate and prevent civil liability for future oil spills off the coast of the United States....

, requiring ships to carry sufficient insurance and hire a management company to handle any oil spill.

The company was bought by Seacor Holdings Inc. in 1997 and later renamed the O'Brien's Group, with O'Brien remaining as President. In 2004, the company helped clean 265,000 gallons of oil that spilled into the Delaware River

Delaware River

The Delaware River is a major river on the Atlantic coast of the United States.A Dutch expedition led by Henry Hudson in 1609 first mapped the river. The river was christened the South River in the New Netherland colony that followed, in contrast to the North River, as the Hudson River was then...

 from the Athos I. It oversaw recovery for the Murphy Oil Spill in Chalmette, Louisiana

Chalmette, Louisiana

Chalmette is a census-designated place in and the parish seat of St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 32,069 at the 2000 census. It is part of the New Orleans–Metairie–Kenner Metropolitan Statistical Area...

 following Hurricane Katrina

Hurricane Katrina

Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...

. In July 2007, the company oversaw remediation efforts when refineries near Coffeyville, Kansas

Coffeyville, Kansas

Coffeyville is a city situated along the Verdigris River in the southeastern part of Montgomery County, located in Southeast Kansas, in the Central United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 10,295...

 spilled 71,400 gallons of oil into the Verdigris River

Verdigris River

The Verdigris River is a tributary of the Arkansas River in southeastern Kansas and northeastern Oklahoma in the United States. It is about long...

 during a flood. The company was also responsible for managing clean-up efforts after the Cosco Busan

Cosco Busan

MSC Venezia, formerly MV COSCO Busan, is a container ship made infamous by its 7 November 2007 collision with the protective fender of the Delta Tower of the San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge in heavy fog. The 08:30:00 UTC-8 collision sliced open two fuel tanks and led to the environmentally...

 spilled 58,000 gallons of bunker oil into the San Francisco Bay

San Francisco Bay

San Francisco Bay is a shallow, productive estuary through which water draining from approximately forty percent of California, flowing in the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers from the Sierra Nevada mountains, enters the Pacific Ocean...

 on November 7, 2007. It deployed approximately 1,500 workers to clean up that spill.

As of 2007, O'Brien's Response Management represents approximately 400 shipping companies, 5,000 ships, and 200 oil and gas

Petroleum industry

The petroleum industry includes the global processes of exploration, extraction, refining, transporting , and marketing petroleum products. The largest volume products of the industry are fuel oil and gasoline...

companies, and has worked on over 400 spills in the past three years.