M-I SWACO Corporate Headquarters, Texas

This building in the Westridge Office Park in Oak Park, is the headquarters for M-I-SWACO, a leading supplier of drilling fluid systems. An oil drilling operation uses a lot of fluids cycling down holes and back out again, to aid the drilling operation. Drilling fluids include chemicals and materials in solution that are injected into oil wells to serve as coolants, lubricants, and material reactants, like acids. The processing and handling of these fluids, cleaning, recycling, managing wastes, preventing spills, and cleaning up after spills is what this company does. The 13,000 employee company is a joint venture co-owned by Smith International (an oil hardware and services company) and Schlumberger.