For a lot of Louisiana business owners, the events of 2020 and 2021 — the COVID-19 pandemic and successive hurricanes Laura, Delta and Ida — were disastrous.
For Corey Rosales, they were opportunities.
Over the course of just a few years, Rosales grew his one-man industrial safety training firm, American Safety, into a diversified company with nearly 500 workers in multiple states and annual revenues in the tens of millions.
Today, the Belle Chasse company transports industrial workers to and from job sites, cleans equipment at refineries, cleans up after industrial accidents and weather disasters, transports water for industrial customers, rebuilds homes and businesses, and manages its own real estate portfolio.
American Safety also provides transportation services to the New Orleans Saints and Pelicans, LSU Athletics and Tulane University, while also serving conventions, weddings and other events.
It’s a lot for the homegrown entrepreneur, who founded the company at age 23 — now 30 — and it keeps him busy. During a recent, hourlong interview at company headquarters, Rosales' cellphone lit up and buzzed every minute or two with an endless stream of text messages.
“I never know what I'm going to wake up and do because we have so many different areas,” Rosales said. “But that's one of the things I love most about my job.”
American Safety , which recognizes the fastest-growing businesses owned or led by LSU alums. Rosales attributes the growth to fiscal discipline — plowing early profits back into the company — and fortuitous timing.
Evan Gomes, a financial adviser who works with Rosales, also credits the company's success to Rosales' hustle.
“Corey is decisive, and not just in business,” he said. “If you were at a restaurant and the table was wobbling, he’d be the first guy to grab a sugar packet and shove it under the table leg. When he sees a problem or an opportunity, he’s the first to address it.”
Finding problems to solve
Rosales grew up in the New Orleans suburbs of Terrytown and Belle Chasse. He moved to Baton Rouge to attend LSU, where he graduated in 2018 with a degree in petroleum engineering.
The next year, he launched American Safety as an environmental training company to teach clients about proper welding practices, respiratory protection and other skills that help industrial companies keep workers safe and comply with regulations.
But he didn't stick with teaching for very long.
Partly because of his environmental safety certification, Rosales landed a job helping clean up after an oil spill at a retention pond at a Plaquemines Parish plant. Initially, he was brought in as a consultant but, one thing led to another, and he ended up putting together a team to do the job. Just like that, he'd launched his new company's “environmental services” division.
Months later, when COVID hit, Rosales expanded his new business in a timely way, tapping his existing sources for protective equipment to become a supplier of masks, gloves and other personal protective equipment for municipalities and commercial customers nationwide while also providing cleaning and decontaminating services for commercial buildings in multiple states.
When hurricanes Laura, Delta, Zeta and Ida hit south Louisiana hard in 2020 and 2021, further throwing the state's economy off-kilter, Rosales added disaster recovery to his company's repertoire, building teams to clean up debris across the Gulf South.
The work required transporting hundreds of workers to disaster sites, so Rosales started chartering buses until he realized he could save on rental fees by buying three used motor coaches of his own. Using this small fleet, he pursued a new and growing line of work: moving industrial workers to and from job sites across Louisiana's expanding industrial corridor.
“New plants and refineries are often being built in remote areas, so you don't have space to park thousands of vehicles,” he said. “You have one road in and one road out, so if we can put 56 people on a bus, that's 56 less cars.”
Not just 'grabbing a shovel'
Two years ago, Rosales began expanding the environmental mitigation side of his business, opening his first of 10 offices outside of Louisiana, including multiple locations in Florida. Those teams are called to clean up after oil spills, plant explosions and other accidents.
, a New Jersey-based venture that works in the New Jersey and New York harbors, in January.
Closer to home, American Safety has helped clean up high-profile accidents like the 2025 in Tangipahoa Parish and February's near Cocodrie.
“Our people are trained to deal with hazardous and nonhazardous responses, so we'll go in rather than someone off the street grabbing a shovel and not knowing what products there and even if they're flammable or not,” Rosales said.
Rosales also got his general contractor license in 2022, so he's able to offer clients turnkey services after disasters.
After a heavy rain last year, for instance, his disaster response team removed all debris and flooded building materials from a Jefferson Parish medical office and was able to rebuild it as well.
“We did flood cuts, we brought dehumidifiers, air blowers and other stabilization equipment,” he said. “We treated it, and then we went back and finished it by putting the sheet rock back and making it look pretty again.”
Saints, LSU deals raising company's profile
Today, about 80% of American Safety's nearly 500 full-time employees are in Louisiana, and two local acquisitions in the last two years boosted that number.
The company in January 2025, just before New Orleans hosted Super Bowl LIX. It used the additional 18 buses acquired through the deal for its work as a “preferred vendor” for the NFL's biggest game, transporting more than 10,000 people, including teams and their families.
A year later, American Safety , provider of luxury motor coaches and charter buses in Baton Rouge.
Today, the company has amassed a fleet of 400 buses and other vehicles that it uses for many purposes. And Rosales said he buys up to 90 news motor coaches annually with prices ranging from $500,000 to $800,000 each.
Though the company's fleet primarily serves industrial customers, the hospitality side of the business is raising its profile with consumers. A good portion of that increased visibility comes from a sponsorship agreement Rosales signed with the Saints and Pelicans last year and similar .
American Safety pays a sponsorship fee to promote its association with the Saints, Pelicans and LSU, and the teams and school agree to use the company to help transport teams, bring players to special appearances, shuttle fans around training camp and more.
Not playing it safe
Though Rosales named his company American Safety, he's done anything but play it safe this decade, investing millions into equipment, personnel and real estate to grow a half-dozen lines of business.
Rosales and his partner, Paul Hull, don't have any outside investors and have financed their growing fleet and property portfolio with bank debt.
The company's real estate holdings are concentrated on the West Bank. In addition to the two office buildings on Belle Chasse Highway, it owns two other warehouses in Belle Chasse plus a bus barn in Harvey.
Looking ahead, Rosales sees growth potential in hospitality transportation and environmental cleanup, in particular.
In an era when flashy tech startups steal all the attention, Gomes, the financial adviser, said he's been amazed watching his friend build a very analog enterprise based on identifying and solving problems.
“There aren’t that many local companies doing the things he’s doing,” he said. “It’s an old-school business performed with care and attention to detail.”