Industrial Business Development Representative

Position Summary:

Barnhart is seeking a Business Development Manager to grow our industrial storage and project buffering business across the Gulf Coast — one of the country's most concentrated industrial and petrochemical markets. This is not a warehousing or commodity-space sales role. Storage and project buffering at Barnhart are extensions of our core heavy-lift, rigging, and transport value proposition: protecting our clients' capital assets, absorbing schedule and logistics risk on complex projects, and giving plant reliability teams a trusted place to store mission-critical equipment.

The ideal candidate will work early and closely with Barnhart's engineering and operations teams — consistent with our "Minds Over Matter" approach — to get storage and buffering solutions designed into projects and maintenance programs from the outset, rather than sold after the fact.

• Identify, qualify, and pursue business opportunities for industrial storage and project buffering — laydown yards, module and equipment staging, container storage, preservation, and related services (labor support, trucking integration) across the Gulf Coast market.
• Develop a dedicated pipeline for storage and preservation of mission-critical equipment (e.g., spare rotors, transformers, turbine components, catalyst, rotatable spares) for industrial plants — engaging plant reliability, maintenance, and asset management stakeholders as a distinct buying group alongside project and procurement contacts.
• Position storage and buffering as risk mitigation and schedule protection — reducing laydown congestion, absorbing delivery and schedule slippage, and safeguarding high-value, long-lead-time assets — rather than simply offering square footage.
• Build a pipeline of prospects across EPC contractors, energy and petrochemical owner-operators, manufacturers, and port-related businesses — with priority emphasis on expanding storage and buffering business inside Barnhart's existing rigging, heavy-lift, and transport accounts.
• Engage early in project and turnaround/outage planning cycles, working alongside Barnhart's in-house engineering team to design storage and buffering solutions into projects before scope is finalized.
• Build and nurture long-term relationships with key decision-makers, presenting Barnhart's integrated value proposition (storage + rigging + heavy haul + transportation) as a single-source solution.
• Where an opportunity spans multiple sites or regions — particularly for mission-critical equipment programs — coordinate with other Barnhart branches and business lines to deliver a consistent, network-wide solution.
• Collaborate with operations, engineering, and project management teams to create customized proposals and ensure seamless service delivery.
• Conduct market research and competitive analysis on trends, opportunities, and threats in the Gulf Coast industrial storage and reliability/maintenance sectors.
• Represent Barnhart at industry events, trade shows, and networking functions to increase brand visibility and generate leads.
• Achieve or exceed annual revenue and gross margin targets, and support utilization targets for existing Barnhart yard and facility capacity in the Gulf Coast region.
• Provide regular forecasts, activity reports, and market intelligence to leadership.

• Bachelor’s degree in business, Marketing, Logistics, Supply Chain, or a related field (or equivalent experience).
• 5+ years of business development or sales experience selling complex, solution-based services into industrial, energy, or petrochemical accounts — heavy equipment, industrial services, reliability/maintenance programs, or capital projects preferred over general logistics or warehousing backgrounds.
• Strong understanding of the Gulf Coast industrial landscape (petrochemical, refining, ports, power, manufacturing) and how storage and buffering needs arise within turnaround, outage, and capital project cycles.
• Demonstrated success navigating long, multi-stakeholder sales cycles involving project planning, procurement, and plant reliability/maintenance functions.
• Excellent communication, negotiation, and…