Oral Histories
Listen as some of the oil and gas industry’s most significant contributors discuss the impact that innovation and technology have made in meeting the challenges of producing energy faster, cheaper, and safer in the 20th century.
For more oral histories of the petroleum engineering industry, visit the Engineering and Technology History Wiki.
Alain Gringarten
Dr. Gringarten holds the Chair of Petroleum Engineering at Imperial College in London, where he is also director of the Centre for Petroleum Studies. He has made major contributions in many breakthrough advances in well test interpretation, including: the use of Greens functions; the "Gringarten type curves" for wells with wellbore storage and skin, fractured wells, and wells with double porosity behavior; the first major commercial computer-aided interpretation software; and a well-test interpretation methodology which has become standard in the oil industry.
He was also an early pioneer of multidisciplinary studies, both in industry and in academia. He was responsible for the development and world-wide implementation of well test interpretation services and was in charge of PVT laboratories at Flopetrol-Schlumberger in Melun, France. Dr. Gringarten is a recognized expert in well test analysis and has authored or coauthored more than 80 technical papers.
Bill Rehm
World renowned for his work in well control, Bill Rehm developed well control and pressure measurements from electric logs. He wrote the first manual accepted by the US Minerals Management Service (MMS) on well control for drillers and supervisors and also wrote five manuals on well control for drilling contractors that were accepted by the US Geological Survey.
In addition, he taught well control courses for many operators and drilling contractors and conducted the first introductory well control school for the MMS. Contributing to some of the most technologically significant advancements in the industry in recent years, Rehm has worked in the area of high-pressure operations and directional drilling, developed slimhole and slick horizontal drilling tools, and developed math models for the turning radius and performance of the tools.
A recognized expert in underbalanced drilling, Rehm developed some of the original plans for underbalanced drilling in the Austin Chalk, and created new drilling motors as well as other mechanical equipment and software.
Fikri Kuchuk
Fikri Kuchuk, a Schlumberger Fellow, is currently Chief Reservoir Engineer for Schlumberger Testing Services. Dr. Kuchuk has 40 years of experience in reservoir characterization, engineering, and management, and is an internationally-recognized expert on pressure transient formation and well testing.
He has made significant contributions to the theory and technology in the areas of formation and well testing interpretation; history matching; and uncertainty in reservoir description and reservoir performance predictions.
He has published and presented more than 150 technical papers on fluid flow in porous media; formation evaluation; pressure transient well testing; production logging; wireline formation testers; horizontal and multilateral well placement and performance; permanent reservoir monitoring; water conformance and control; and reservoir engineering and management.
Janeen Judah
Janeen Judah is currently the General Manager of Chevron’s Southern Africa business. Other Chevron positions include President of the Chevron Environmental Management Company and GM of Reservoir and Production Engineering for Chevron Energy Technology Company. She started her career in Midland in 1981.
Janeen will be the 2017 President of the Society of Petroleum Engineers International and started in SPE leadership as a student section officer. She has served in many leadership roles including Chair of both the Permian Basin and Gulf Coast sections and two terms on the international Board of Directors, as the regional director for Gulf Coast NA and currently as Vice President – Finance.
Janeen has been recognized for her university support and advocacy for women engineers by the Texas A&M Petroleum Engineering Department, Texas A&M College of Engineering and the Society of Women Engineers, and she serves on advisory boards for all three. She is the the second woman to be honored as an Outstanding Alumni of the Texas A&M College of Engineering. She is also Chevron’s Executive Sponsor for their relationships with the University of Houston.
Janeen earned her B.S. and M.S. degrees in petroleum engineering from Texas A&M. She also holds an MBA from the University of Texas of the Permian Basin and a JD from the University of Houston Law Center. She is a frequent speaker on industry issues, including technology, innovation and risk, as well as diversity and career development.
G. Paul Willhite
G. Paul Willhite is the Ross H. Forney Distinguished Professor of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering at the University of Kansas where he has taught petroleum and chemical engineering courses since joining the faculty in 1969. His research program includes studies on waterflooding, surfactant and polymer flooding, water control using gelled polymer systems and carbon dioxide miscible flooding.
He is the Co founder of the Tertiary Oil Recovery Project at KU and served as Co Director from 1974-2009. Prior to joining the University of Kansas, he conducted research in the Production Research Division of Continental Oil Company from 1962-1969. He is the author of the SPE Textbook:”Waterflooding” published in 1986 and coauthor of the SPE Textbook:” Enhanced Oil Recovery” published in 1998. He co edited the SPE Speed Up Series on Surfactant Flooding (2011) and Polymer Flooding (2011) and serves as an Associate Editor, SPEJ.
He is the recipient of the SPE John Franklin Carll Award and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He has a B.S. in Chemical Engineering, Iowa State University (1959) and a PhD in Chemical Engineering from Northwestern University (1962).
Harry McLeod
Harry McLeod has devoted his career to evaluating well behavior and making continuous improvements to project technology.
At Phillips, he implemented trials of new stimulation treatments; at Exxon, he made an impact focusing on artificial-lift and hydraulic-fracturing systems; and at Dowell, he developed a formation analysis technique for evaluating wells when using acid treatments.
Later, at Conoco, with others, he designed a fracturing model used to eliminate screenouts by using control measures.
James Brill
James Brill's work in mechanistic and unified modeling of multiphase flow led him to found the Tulsa University Fluid Flow Projects in 1973.
Additionally, he has served as a consultant to more than 35 international oil and gas companies in a variety of multiphase flow projects around the world and is the author of over 200 technical papers.
Jennifer Miskimins
Dr. Jennifer L. Miskimins is a Senior Consulting Engineer with Barree & Associates, a consulting firm specializing in stimulation and well performance optimization. Prior to joining the company in 2012, she was an Associate Professor in the Petroleum Engineering Department at the Colorado School of Mines, where she taught classes in completions and stimulation for over ten years and was the founder and director of the Fracturing, Acidizing, Stimulation Technology (FAST) Consortium. Dr. Miskimins still holds a part-time appointment at the university.
Dr. Miskimins holds B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in petroleum engineering. Before returning to graduate school and subsequently joining Mines, she worked for Marathon Oil Company for eight years as a production engineer in a variety of field locations. She specializes in well completions, stimulation, formation damage, and production issues, as well as, offers a variety of in-house short courses on these topics.
Dr. Miskimins has served as an SPE Distinguished Lecturer twice (2010-2011 and 2013-2014) on hydraulic fracturing in unconventional reservoirs. She served as the Executive Editor for the SPE Production & Operations Journal from 2008-2011 and also serves on a variety of SPE committees including the Production & Operations Technical Advisory Committee and the Hydraulic Fracturing Technical Conference organizing committee.
Dr. Miskimins has authored over 65 technical papers and is a registered Professional Engineer in the State of Colorado. In October 2014, she was awarded the SPE International Completions Optimization and Technology Award at the annual SPE conference in Amsterdam. In September 2015, she will join the SPE International Board of Directors as the Technical Director for the Production & Operations Section.
Listen to Jennifer's interview.
John Lee
Known throughout the world as a leader in petroleum reservoir engineering, W. John Lee headed Exxon Company's US Major Fields Study Group where he supervised integrated field studies of Exxon's largest domestic reservoirs.
Lee later went on to specialize in reservoir engineering for unconventional gas reservoirs as the executive vice president of S.A. Holditch & Associates.
During 2007-2008, he served as an Academic Engineering Fellow with the US Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) in Washington, D.C. where he was the principal architect of the modernized SEC rules for reporting oil and gas reserves.
Ken Arnold
Kenneth E. Arnold has over 40 years of industry experience in facilities design and management. He has taught facilities engineering at the University of Houston, and has written two textbooks and over 50 technical articles on project management and facilities design.
He has received an American Petroleum Institute citation for his work in promoting offshore safety, and was recognized by the Offshore Energy Center for his pioneering work in helping to develop API RP 14C.
Khalid Aziz
Dr. Aziz is the Otto N. Miller Professor of Earth Sciences and Professor of Petroleum Engineering at Stanford University. He served as professor of chemical and petroleum engineering at the University of Calgary where he established the Computer Modeling Group and managed it for 5 years. He has also served on the faculty of the University of Alberta and as the Chief Engineer of Karachi Gas Co. Ltd.
At Stanford, Aziz served as the Associate Dean for Research (School of Earth Sciences) and Chair of the Petroleum Engineering Department. His research interests include reservoir simulation, modeling of advanced wells, multiphase flow in pipes, and natural gas engineering. He graduated from the University of Michigan (BSE), University of Alberta (BSc and MSc), and Rice U. (PhD).
He has been awarded Honorary Membership in the Society of Petroleum Engineers and has published more than 150 technical papers, two books and one monograph. He is a frequent consultant to major oil and gas companies and government agencies, is a member of the National Academy of Engineering of the United States and the European Academy of Sciences.
Larry Lake
Larry W. Lake is chair of the Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering and director of the Enhanced Oil Recovery Research Program at the University of Texas at Austin. He is a specialist in reservoir engineering and geochemistry, specifically focusing on enhanced oil recovery and reservoir characterization.
Dr. Lake’s work in quantifying the effects of geochemical interactions and flow variability for resource recovery is now widely applied by industry. His reservoir characterization work includes demonstrating that different geological depositional processes produce flow properties that can be statistically described.
He was also among the first to recognize the importance of rock-fluid chemical interactions on enhanced oil recovery, and his work has been crucial in developing more efficient methods for recovering oil and gas from reservoirs.
Leon Robinson
Leon Robinson enjoyed a 39-year career at Exxon and made contributions in many technology areas such as: mud cleaners, explosive drilling, drilling data telemetry, subsurface rock mechanics, and drilling and hydraulic optimization techniques, tertiary oil recovery, on-site drilling workshops, world-wide drilling fluid seminars and rig site consultation. He has received 34 US patents and 23 International patents pertaining to these areas.
Currently, he is a consultant, Chairman of the IADC Technical Publications Committee writing the encyclopedia of drilling, Chairman of an API task group involved with API RP 13C, member of API task groups addressing issues with drilling fluids and hydraulics, and on the AADE Conference planning committee.
Lyn Arscott
Lyn Arscott retired in 2001 as the Executive Director of the International Association of Oil & Gas Producers (OGP) which represents the upstream oil and gas industry before international regulatory agencies.
Prior to that position, he was employed by the Chevron Corporation where assignments included Director and Corporate General Manager of Health, Environment and Safety and Senior Executive Consultant for Exploration and Production reporting to the Chairman of the Board.
He was the 1988 President of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE). He is a past Chairman of the American Petroleum Institute’s General Committee on Health and Environment and past Chairman of the Western States Petroleum Association committee on Environment, Health and Safety.
During 2001/2002, he was an SPE Distinguished Lecturer on the subject of Sustainable Development in the Oil and Gas Industry.
Mary Van Domelen
Mary Van Domelen is an Engineering Advisor with Continental Resources. She holds a BS degree in Chemical Engineering and is a licensed professional engineer. She has 30 years of experience in research and practical application of well completions.
Mary started her career with Halliburton and has worked in the USA, Europe and Africa. Prior to Continental, she worked for Maersk Oil and Chesapeake in horizontal drilling and completion operations.
She has co-authored more than 30 papers and holds 8 patents. Mary plays an active role in the SPE by participating in organizing committees for conferences, applied technology workshops, and forums.
Martin Chenevert
Internationally recognized for his work in the area of wellbore stability and drilling fluids, Dr. Chenevert has devoted his career to researching the petrophysical properties of shales, wellbore stability in shale formations, the dynamic filtration of drilling muds, and properties of synthetic muds.
Chenevert has also developed software applications for use in petroleum engineering and holds nine US patents, including several for drilling with low water content in oil emulsion fluids; a method for determining clay reactivity; water-based well fluids for shale stability; and treating subsurface water-sensitive shale formations.
In 2014, Dr. Chenevert retired as senior lecturer for UT’s petroleum engineering program and director of the drilling research program at the university’s Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering Department, and has taught at both the University of Houston and Oklahoma University.
He was inducted into the Drilling Fluid Hall of Fame by the American Association of Drilling Engineers in 2006 and has received recognition for his work and teaching from API, SPE, and the University of Texas.
Nancy Musick
Nancy Musick is currently a Special Projects Manager (Technical Activities) for the Society of Petroleum Engineers in Houston, Texas and is responsible for overseeing the SPE Technical Reports and for facilitating the activities of Subject Matter Expert (SME) committees / taskforces focused on dissemination and discussion of technology.
She is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin with BS degree in Petroleum Engineering. Nancy completed more than 18 hours of graduate study in Environmental Engineering at the University of Alaska Anchorage. Currently, she is pursuing a MSE in Project Management from the University of Texas at Austin.
She has more than 8 years petroleum industry experience in reservoir simulation, pressure transient analysis, reservoir surveillance, field development planning, and multi-discipline technical project support. She has worked on assignments in Texas, Alaska, Oklahoma, and Kuwait.
Nancy has more than 9 years teaching experience of core curriculum for elementary and secondary school levels with emphasis in mathematics, science, English grammar & vocabulary, and writing while living abroad in Kuwait, Qatar, and Oman.
Nancy is a long standing member of SPE. She has served in several SPE local chapters and is currently a member of the SPE Gulf Coast Section.
Ralph Veatch
Ralph W. Veatch Jr. is president of Software Enterprises Inc., an engineering consulting firm. Dr. Veatch worked in the Research Department of Amoco Production Company for twenty-three years.
Retiring in 1993 as supervisor of the Hydraulic Fracturing and Well Completions and Production Operations groups, he has authored or coauthored 25 technical papers and 12 books, and holds several patents.
During his career he served on numerous advisory committees for the American Petroleum Institute, Completion Engineering Association, Gas Research Institute, Los Alamos National Laboratory, National Petroleum Council, and U.S. Department Of Energy.
Roland N. Horne
Dr. Roland N. Horne is the Thomas Davies Barrow Professor of Earth Sciences in the Department of Energy Resources Engineering at Stanford University, and Director of the Stanford Geothermal Program.
He was formerly the Chairman of the Department of Petroleum Engineering at Stanford from 1995 to 2006. He is best known for his work in well test interpretation, production optimization, and tracer analysis of fractured reservoirs. To date, he has supervised the graduate research of 37 PhDs, and 120 research MS students.
He is the recipient of the Lester C. Uren Award from Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE), as well as the John Franklin Carll Award. Horne was elected a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering in 2002, and in 2007 he was designated an Honorary Member of SPE.
Horne is the 2010-2013 President of the International Geothermal Association, Technical Program Cochair of the World Geothermal Congresses 2005, 2010 and 2015, a Guest Professor of the China University of Petroleum, and has served as adviser to Texas A&M University, University of Auckland, and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia.
Satya Gupta
Dr. D.V. Satya Gupta is Baker Hughes Technology Fellow. He was previously Business Development Director, Technology for Baker Hughes pressure pumping (BJ Services). He has more than 37 years of oil field chemical product development and applications experience. His main personal research interests are green chemical technologies and unconventional fracturing fluids.
He has co-authored chapters on "Fracturing Fluids" in the book Modern Fracturing, edited by Economides and Martin; the new SPE monograph on Hydraulic Fracturing; and the chapter on "Fracturing Fluids and Proppants" in the book Hydraulic Fracturing and Drinking Water published by AWWA.
He is on the editorial board of SPE and also the Hydraulic Fracture Quarterly Technical Journal. He has presented talks on unconventional fracturing fluids all over the world. He is a member of SPE, NACE, ACS, AIChE and the Petroleum Society of Canada. He was SPE Distinguished Lecturer in 2014-15 giving lecture on “How to Frac with Less or No Water” around the world.
He has published more than 50 papers and is an inventor on over 120 international and US patents. He is the recipient of Baker Hughes Life Time Achievement Award in 2013. He has a Doctor of Science in Chemical Engineering from Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, USA.
Sam Gibbs
Recognizing the need for improvements in sucker rod pumping technology, Dr. Sam Gibbs developed a mathematical method for analyzing rod pumping operations using the wave equation.
After forming Nabla Corporation with business partner Ken Nolan, Gibbs went on to develop the SAM Well Manager, which is reportedly the most popular pump off control (POC) in the world today.
Gibbs and Nolen also developed the first on-site diagnostic computer to calculate real time parameters of and determine any problems with a pumping unit and its down-hole equipment.
Gibbs has written more than 24 technical papers and an engineering textbook on sucker rod 2 pumping. In 2011, Dr. Gibbs was inducted into the Petroleum Hall of Fame for his contributions to technological innovation in the petroleum industry.
Shauna Noonan
Shauna Noonan is the Completions Technology Manager for ConocoPhillips in Houston. She has worked on artificial lift projects and technology development worldwide at ConocoPhillips and previously Chevron for 22 years.
She has chaired many industry artificial lift forums and authored / co-authored over 20 papers on the subject of artificial lift. She was the chair of the ISO standard committee for PCPs and is the current chair of the ISO standard for ESPs.
She is the 2012 – 2015 Technical Director for Production and Operations on SPE’s International Board of Directors and chair of the SPE Artificial Lift Conference and Exhibition for North America.
Shauna began her career working for Chevron Canada Resources and holds a B.Sc. in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Alberta.
Stephen A. Holditch
Stephen Holditch, Professor Emeritus of Petroleum Engineering at Texas A&M University, held the Directorship of the Texas A&M Energy Institute, and was Head of the Harold Vance Department of Petroleum Engineering, where he supervised research in the areas of unconventional gas reservoirs, well completions, well logging and well stimulation, and hydraulic fracturing.
Dr. Holditch is a recognized expert in tight gas reservoirs, coalbed methane, shale gas reservoirs, and the design of hydraulic fracture treatments. He has authored or co-authored three books and more than fifty technical papers.
Ted Frankiewicz
Ted Frankiewicz has more than 30 years' experience with Occidental Petroleum, Unocal Corp., Natco Group, and, currently, SPEC Services. He has a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of Chicago, holds 15 patents, and has written more than 25 professional publications.
At Unocal, he was responsible for developing the water treatment systems that were installed in the Gulf of Thailand to remove mercury and arsenic as well as residual oil from produced water. At Natco Group he developed an effective vertical column flotation vessel design and used CFD to diagnose problems with existing water treatment equipment, as well as designed new equipment.
His combined expertise in oilfield chemistry, the design of process equipment, and the development of process systems has provided him with unique insights into the issues that challenge operators as their water production and water treatment costs escalate over time.
William C. Maurer
Dr. Maurer has spent his career spearheading changes for the petroleum industry, including his extensive research into novel drilling techniques, drilling mechanics, rock mechanics, drill bit design, downhole drilling motors, high-pressure jet drilling, horizontal drilling, and advanced drilling tools.
He holds 38 patents on oilfield downhole drilling and completion tools. In the 1980s, Maurer organized an effort, known as the DEA 44, to develop tools that would drill horizontal wells.
Maurer has authored more than 60 published works, including two books on drilling technology and was inducted into the US National Academy of Engineering in 1992.