FORT WORTH -- Talk about making every inch of office space count.

At the height of the drilling boom and $100 oil, Bryan Cortney and Jesse Hejny wanted affordable expansion room for their rapidly growing oil and gas services business. The former Texas Christian University football teammates and 50-50 business partners of Purple Land Management LLC found that in a dilapidated office building that was downtown Cowtown's first parking garage.

The 33-year-olds have spent nearly $7 million buying and converting the 98-year-old Winfield building into an open-space, millennial-friendly environment.

"We want to hire the smartest, most motivated people," Cortney says. "Our philosophy is infrastructure can set you apart. It's not easy to make that size of investment, but if you can, it can take you places."

In one regard, he's speaking literally.

The 1919 freight elevator at the heart of the building once transported automobiles from floor to floor. It's now a glassed-in conference room that moves up and down the three-story building -- a stroke of genius by Fort Worth architect Michael Bennett.

The principal and CEO of Bennett Benner Partners, who's known for his work on Sundance Square, the Museum of Living Art at the Fort Worth Zoo and projects at TCU, says the mobile meeting room is probably the quirkiest space he's ever repurposed.

"It happened as we were touring the building on our initial meeting with Jesse and Bryan," Bennett says. "One of them walked over to it and said something like 'Unless you can think of something better, I guess we'd just fill in the floor.'

"That's when the idea hit me that the elevator was actually about the same size as a small conference room. It literally just popped in my head on the spot."

The mobile conference room serves whatever floor needs it. People reserve it and can lock it so it doesn't move while their meetings are in session. That's important because employees like to ride it for fun or call for it when the regular elevator is moving too slowly.

The funky elevator is symbolic of Purple Land's cyclical business.

Purple Land Management owners Bryan Cortney and Jesse Hejny show off their funky elevator conference room. The 1919 freight elevator used to transport autos from floor to floor of Fort Worth's first parking garage.(Lawrence Jenkins/Special Contributor)

Purple Land -- a tribute to the partners' Horned Frogs alma mater -- is a full-service land services business that finds real estate and secures mineral and property rights for exploration and production companies.

For two years running, Purple Land made the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies, rising to $37.3 million in revenue in 2015.

"Our first five years was a rocket to the moon -- everything was up, up up," says Hejny (pronounced Hay-nee).

Comeback kids

Then came the storm of 2016, when budget cuts finally ravaged the service industry. Purple Land's revenue was slashed by a third to $24 million and change.

Cortney and Hejny survived death-by-$40-oil and even eked out a profit by cutting staff and salaries. They sank just about every spare penny into new proprietary software, which they see as their throttle for the future.

The fourth quarter showed signs that industry was on a comeback. And Purple Land is landing users for its Overdrive software, which helps customers cut overhead.

Purple Land did land and due diligence work for one of 2016's largest deals -- Houston-based Terra Energy Partners' purchase of Piceance Basin assets in Colorado from WPX Energy, Hejny says. Now the third-largest producer of natural gas in North America is using Overdrive to help manage those assets.

Tiffany Pollock, vice president of Terra Energy, says her company was impressed with Overdrive's capabilities.

"Post closing, we integrated Overdrive to serve as an asset management platform giving us the tools to further develop our position," she says. "PLM's solutions have allowed their team to stay at the forefront of the tech space and allowed them to adapt quickly to the ever-evolving market."

Barry Osborne, vice president of Range Resources Corp. in Fort Worth, has been managing land departments for 24 years and says that Purple Land has become his go-to land management firm. "Land work that is accurate, timely and responsive is the key and PLM has consistently delivered that," Osborne says.

Back in the hiring mode

So things are back on the rise for the young landmen.

Since November, they've restored salaries and 160 jobs -- both employees and contract workers -- bringing the total to 365 at headquarters and 11 offices around the country. The company had 470 workers a year ago.

At Christmas, they made sure that bonuses were paid.

"We're going back to those old problems that we've come to appreciate," Hejny says. " 'Oh, we can't hire enough people. Darn.' We consider those high-class problems. We're headed back on that record '15 track. Hopefully, '16 was a blip on our radar."

Purple Land Management owners Jesse Hejny and Bryan Cortney wanted a millennial-friendly office environment. (Lawrence Jenkins/Special Contributor)

Hejny is president, and Cortney is CEO. They drew their titles from a hat in their attorney's office when they incorporated seven years ago. Even though a CEO typically outranks a president, Hejny's title came with the modifier "for life," so neither can fire the other.

They've been friends since TCU coach Gary Patterson recruited them from junior colleges in California.

Cortney was a punter. Hejny played defensive end.

"I would spend three hours in practice going up against the biggest guys on the team -- 6'7", 300-pound offensive tackles," says Hejny. "Meanwhile, Bryan's playing video games in the locker room. He'd come out the last 15 minutes when we did special teams.

"I'm thinking, 'This guy's getting the same scholarship check that I'm getting. I need to know him. He's a smart guy.'

"It's a metaphor for our business. I'm not scared of doing anything. Bryan is more cautious and reserved. I'm the driver of the business. Bryan sits back and dreams what we could be.

"That's a good balance and why we work so well together."

Cortney agrees.

"We have two different mindsets and two different approaches on how we can win the ballgame. Fortunately, we've won enough of them to keep on playing. It's been a lot of fun."

What's a landman?

Neither knew what a landman was until he became one.

Hejny had plans to go to law school. When a TCU alum offered him a job doing land work for his energy company while he got his law degree, Hejny thought it was a job mowing lawns. But it paid a lot of money, so Hejny said what the heck.

"I had no clue about what it was. I don't want to sound like an idiot, but I was 22 years old and just wanted a job," he recalls.

Hejny showed up for work his first day at Four Sevens Energy Co. in jeans, boots and a polo shirt prepared to mow lawns. Fortunately he was tidy enough for an unexpected training trip to the county courthouse to look up oil records.

A few months later, Hejny recruited his best buddy to join him at Four Sevens, working the Barnett Shale fields.

They went out on their own in 2010, moving into swank offices overlooking TCU. That turned into a six-story nightmare. The elevator was constantly on the fritz and the air conditioner was more prone to blow hot air than cold in the summer.

After they had to move a meeting with two guys from Chesapeake Energy Corp. to a nearby coffee shop because the elevator wasn't working and the building was too hot, the partners made buying their own digs a top priority.

On New Year's Day 2014, Cortney drove slowly through the streets of downtown making a list of properties they might be able to afford that would give them plenty of running room. The old Winfield Garage, converted into office space in 1981, was one of them.

"There were a few tenants in here," Cortney says, giving a tour. "Most of them were looking to move on. We gutted it entirely and made it what it is today."

Ground-floor space that had been a Cuban-themed bar and restaurant was turned into a common area for eating, lounging, playing foosball, pool and shuffleboard.

Unfortunately, the rooftop basketball court and a gym in the basement did get the budgetary ax.

Tammy Coyne, 53, who handles billing, accounting and administrative tasks, has been with Purple Land Management since its earliest days.

"I call Jesse and Bryan my boys because they're just kids to me," says Coyne, who's also known as Mama T. "What they've been able to accomplish in this industry is so impressive to me."

She's busy these days because she handles the paperwork for new employees.

"So many land companies have gone under, and we're hiring like crazy for all of our offices," she says. "Jesse and Bryan know that you have to go where the boom is. That's why they've opened all of these offices around the country.

"I've told the guys that when they open one in Hawaii, I'll sure go run it for them."

**

AT A GLANCE

Jesse Hejny

Title: President

Age: 33

Grew up: Roving military brat

Education: Bachelor's degree in political science, Texas Christian University, 2007

Personal: Married to JimAnne Hejny for 11 years. They have three sons, 11, 6 and 1.

Bryan Cortney

Title: CEO

Age: 33

Grew up: San Diego

Education: Bachelor's degree in psychology, business minor, Texas Christian University, 2007

Personal: Married to Katelin Cortney for six years. They have a son, 3, and daughter, 1.

Purple Land Management LLC

Founded: Jan. 26, 2010

Ownership: 50-50 partnership of Cortney and Hejny

Headquarters: Downtown Fort Worth

Annual revenue: $24 million-plus for 2016.

Workforce: 365 (147 employees, 218 contractors)

Offices:

12, including headquarters