About Us

My name is Brad Knutson, first let me wipe the sweat off my brow & the grease of my hands so I can type this.  I was born and raised in good ol’ Williston, ND. I started in the oilfield in 1988 after going to college for a year. Many of the old timers would always say “Son – get out of the oilfield while you got a chance”. I tried a few times with a few short stints on other career paths and another semester of college. On the day I was supposed to start my last semester of my 2 year degree, the wind chill was 75 below and I was tired of the cold and didn’t want to go to school, I packed up my Bronco and moved to Farmington, New Mexico. After spending about a year down there working a few oilfield jobs, I decided to move back home. Several times I told myself I was getting out of the oilfield and doing something else, well luckily that didn’t quite work out & here I am.

I decided to take a less paying, but cleaner & inside job as a parts person at Stewart & Stevenson. Within the next 2 years they sold out & shortly after that 3 of they key employees decided to start their own business and asked me to come work for them. Which then was the beginning of Industrial Equipment Sales & Service (I.E.S.S.) That was back in 1999, which was the year when for the 1^st time in 50 years since oil was discovered in ND – there were Zero drilling rigs operating in North Dakota. Many people thought they were crazy to start a business then, but I never had a doubt – probably easier that it wasn’t my money. 22 years later & here I still am with the great owners & the great company of IESS.

Over the years of the ups and downs and constant changes of the oilfield – IESS, as well as many other oilfield businesses would find ourselves with surplus stock & equipment. To give you a gauge on how much equipment, inventory, parts, etc is in the area, think back to when the 1^st time Ritchie Brothers Auction started coming to Williston.  Some years they would have 2 auctions per year & have over 50 million $$ of listings, which is only a fraction of the actual inventory in the area. Auctions have a high success rate & a very high marketing budget; but not always the best option for every case. Sellers want a premium price & buyers want a bargain – makes sense. Some don’t have the time & want the hassle to haul everything to the auction yard, or the $$ value is too small to list, or they don’t want to wait 6-12 months for the next auction.

In the beginning of the crazy year of 2020, before Covid hit & oil crashed – is when Bakken Oilfield started. I was looking for options so sell our surplus stock & the auctions didn’t fit our needs, some of the other classified websites were too broad or didn’t seem to have many local listings. I had built the original IESS website 15 years ago along with some other sites but my web building knowledge was way outdated. I stared to re-learn & then re-built www.iessinc.com and started listing some of our surplus stock. Then I decided to start the BOS website, which became a tasking ordeal. The backend of the site was above my paygrade and expertise, so I had 2 different freelancers work on it over the next 4-5 months – which they ended up messing it up and then I hired a third company that had to start over and build the site from scratch.

Bakken Oilfield Surplus offers Free basic ads, to help bring the buyers & sellers together for the massive amount of Oil & Gas parts, equipment & surplus stock in the Williston Basin. Although the Classified are specifically for the Oil & Gas, the Business Directory is for all types of local businesses in the Bakken region. The concept of this was to promote more traffic to the classified ads, but also a way to give back to the communities of the Bakken and help advertise & promote local businesses.

Well, I better get back to work and earn some money since my hobbies aren’t cheap – walleye slaying fishing & riding Harley, I should have picked cheaper hobbies like checkers or bird watching. Now go start buying & selling on BOS; also – be sure to check out all the businesses on the business directory & support on the great local businesses. Thanks for visiting.