KENNY MAZOUR DOES “WHATEVER IT TAKES”

His first day working in the field of non-destructive testing (NDT) would have sent the average 18-year-old sprinting away from the job site. But not Kenny Mazour.

“That first job was eye-opening. They had me cleaning tubes inside a garbage-burning boiler to prepare them for testing,” recalls Kenny. “I saw the look in my co-workers’ eyes – they did not think I would be back. So, I made sure I kept coming back.”

As it turns out, the boiler wasn’t the only thing being tested that day.

“I later learned that we always start our new guys on the worst job,” says Kenny, who began his career at Washington-based 5 Star Testing, which was acquired by Industrial Inspection & Analysis (IIA) in 2019. “If you can make it through the most horrible job, everything else is smooth sailing.”

Nearly a quarter-century later, Kenny — Field Sales & Operations Manager for IIA’s Facility Services division —is a respected Level II NDT inspector with a long list of certifications, including visual inspection, ultrasonic thickness testing, magnetic particle inspection, penetrant testing, remote visual inspection, and phased array testing. He is also a certified American Petroleum Institute (API) inspector, as well as a Certified Welding Inspector (CWI).

There is, however, one certification you won’t find on his resume’: drone operator. He leaves that to his younger brother, Mike, who also works for IIA.

“Based on past experience, I am scared to death of crashing those things and destroying an expensive piece of equipment,” says Kenny. “I’m not a video game player. It takes a good gamer to operate a drone without GPS — and that’s my brother.”

Time spent with family, including his wife and two young children, is particularly precious to Kenny, who is often gone months at a time to support outage work at paper mills and coal-fired power plants across the United States.

One particularly grueling experience came just after Kenny completed three weeks of intensive API training, when he was asked to take a welding inspection job in North Dakota after significant damage was found on the water walls of a boiler. As the true scope of the job became more apparent, Kenny was forced to settle in for the long haul, as the “two-week” job stretched on and on.

“I ended up being out there for almost three months, working through a North Dakota winter to inspect all of the overlay and get the boiler back up and running. That was one of those jobs that almost gives you post-traumatic stress,” says Kenny. “Since I travel so much, I try to spend as much time as I can just being present with my family.”

As his customers will attest, nothing inspires Kenny like a challenge — and he finds plenty of that at IIA.

The thing Kenny likes most about his job is working with a team and coming up with a plan to accomplish things that are not necessarily do-able for an individual. Kenny brings a personal commitment to quality and customer service, courtesy of his father.

“My dad is a salesman, and he drilled some things into my head about exceeding expectations, maintaining commitments, and not surprising the customer (in anything but a good way). It’s important to me to deliver on my customers’ expectations,” says Kenny.

“This life isn’t for everyone. You’ve got to be eager to learn and have a strong work ethic. No matter the challenge, you’ve got to do whatever it takes to get the job done.”