Leadership

Jack Rathbone (67) is Co-Founder of Mid-States Operating Company, Trinity Royalty Partners LP, B-J Environmental Services LP and B-J Realty LLC.  Prior, he had a long and distinguished career with Mobil, culminating as President of Mobil Producing Texas and New Mexico (MPTM).  MPTM was Mobil Oil’s exploration and production operating company for the western United States (excluding California).  He was also a Director of Mobil’s U.S. E&P company.  During the merger with Exxon, Mr. Rathbone worked in Exxon headquarters designing the merged E&P company. He chose to leave Exxon Mobil to become an independent operator.  He currently serves as President of Mid-States Operating Company.

Under Mr. Rathbone’s leadership, Mobil doubled its Permian Basin production to 95 thousand barrels per day at the time of the merger.  He built an inventory of development projects using CO2 flooding, horizontal drilling with hydraulic fracturing and other advanced technologies.  Mr. Rathbone pioneered numerous joint ventures with independent producers and service providers to increase production and reserves and improve profits.

After leaving Exxon Mobil, Mr. Rathbone joined Titan Exploration as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer.  He played an important role in the subsequent merger of Titan and Unocal’s Permian Basin assets and the formation of what became known as Pure Resources, in which he held the same position.  Pure Resources was a publicly traded oil and gas producer with over 40 thousand barrels equivalent per day production.

Mr. Rathbone is a graduate of Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge with a B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering.  He has been heavily involved on numerous civic, industry and church boards.

Randy Randol has served in various management capacities for Exxon and ExxonMobil over a 25 year career. His final Exxon post was as the company’s top environmental voice in Washington, DC. Since retiring from Exxon, he then served as an independent energy and environmental government policy and legislative affairs consultant in Washington, DC. Randy’s recent clients included Peabody Energy, the largest non-government coal company in the world. His industry expertise spans a broad spectrum, including oil & gas, biofuels, coal, carbon dioxide enhanced oil recovery, federal and state legislative and policy incentives, and energy, environmental, and economic modeling and analysis. Prior to his retirement from ExxonMobil in December 2003 he was the senior environmental advisor in ExxonMobil’s Washington office. In addition, Dr. Randol had responsibilities for issues related to ExxonMobil Chemical Company and ExxonMobil’s two research companies. Before returning to Washington in 1997, he was Manager of Public Affairs for the Houston-based Exxon Chemical Company, which has major operations in North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and the Middle East.

Dr. Randol joined Exxon Corporation in 1979 as representative for Nuclear Affairs in Washington, DC. He had assignments in Exxon Company USA and Exxon Pipeline Company, where he was the business development manager and served on the board of Plantation Pipe Line. Prior to joining Exxon, Dr. Randol was Vice President of Technical Affairs for the American Nuclear Energy Council (predecessor to Nuclear Energy Institute) and Manager of Nuclear Fuel for Potomac Electric Power Company.

Randy received degrees from the University of Notre Dame (BSME-Nuclear option) and the University of Florida (MSE, PhD in nuclear engineering).

John McCright is Green Century’s lead contractor for land and leasing work. Since 2005 he has worked as an independent oil, gas, and mineral consultant managing both producing and non-producing assets of estates. His expertise includes examination of courthouse and abstract company records for the purpose of preparing mineral and leasehold take-offs; title examination and title curative; negotiating and purchasing oil and gas leases; buying and selling oil and gas assets; due diligence for oil and gas property acquisitions; assembling oil and gas prospects; and contract review and management of joint operating agreements, exploration agreements, and joint venture agreements.

In 2016, Mr. McCright founded McCright & Associates, LLC, a landman brokerage firm providing services for both publicly traded oil and gas companies and independent clients.

Prior to founding McCright & Associates, John worked with T. Verne Dwyer, winner of the American Association of Professional Landmen 2011 Lifetime Achievement award, from 2007 until Mr. Dwyer’s passing in 2016. In this capacity he worked on a broad variety of projects including acquisitions on both the buy and sell side and due diligence for deals up to and over $1 billion in size. His experience spans the entire Permian Basin from southeast New Mexico to the Texas Delaware Basin and Midland Basin, and covers the full spectrum of reservoir settings from conventional to shale.

John started his experience as a landman in Midland, Texas at Choate Company, Inc., a respected West Texas landman brokerage firm, in 2005.

Mr. McCright graduated from Texas Tech University in 1999 with a B.S. in Marketing.

Ernest has over fifty years’ experience in the oil and gas industry. He received a BS degree in Petroleum Engineering from Louisiana State University in 1956. After six years with Gulf Oil Corporation in Crane and Midland, Texas, Ernest joined Sohio Petroleum, also in Midland from 1962 to 1964. In 1964 he opened his own business as an independent Petroleum Engineer.

Ernest was the founding President of Discovery Operating, an Oil & Gas exploration and production company a position he left after being elected Mayor of Midland, Texas. Currently, Ernest is managing partner of Discovery Exploration involved in investing in Oil and Gas exploration and production.

He is a member of Pi Epsilon Tau and Tau Beta Pi Honorary Societies, Society of Petroleum Engineers, Society of Professional Earth Scientists and the Texas Society of Professional Engineers. He served as Permian Basin President and State Director of the latter group. In 1973 he was named Permian Basin Engineer of the Year. He was appointed to the National Petroleum Council by three consecutive Secretaries of Energy. In 1996 he received the National Public Service award from the Society of Petroleum Engineers. In 2008 Ernest received the John Ben Sheppard Leadership Foundation Texas Leader Award.

Ernest has had a lifelong interest in government and politics. Ernest served four terms as Mayor, of Midland, Texas (a nearly full time, volunteer position) retiring in 1980. During his tenure, Midland experienced substantial growth and an increase in City facilities and services while achieving the lowest tax rate among Texas’ 25 largest cities. In 1976 and 1980 he was Co Chairman and Chairman respectively of Ronald Reagan’s Presidential campaign in Texas. In both years, Reagan carried Texas with large majorities and in 1980, Angelo was the volunteer Campaign Manager for Gov Reagan’s landslide Texas victory. Angelo was Republican National Committeeman for Texas from 1976 to 1996.

More recently, Ernest served on the Texas Parks and wildlife Commission as an appointee of Gov George W. Bush. In March, 2008 he completed a term as Chairman of The Texas Department of Public Safety Commission, a position to which he was appointed by Gov. Rick Perry. Ernest also served on the Coordinating Board, Texas College and University System, appointed by Gov. William Clements.

Ernest currently serves as a board member of the Texas Wildlife Association and a member of the board of Mountain States Legal Foundation, Texas Public Policy Foundation, Texas Department of Public Safety Foundation. He is a Life Member of Sigma Chi, a member of the Midland Sigma Chi Alumni Chapter and a lifelong supporter of Louisiana State University and its Petroleum Engineering Department.

Ernest and his wife Penny are parents of four children and grandparents of eight. They are members of St. Ann’s Catholic Church where Penny sings in the choir and Ernest is a past President of St. Ann’s School Board and past member of the Parish Council.

Bob Hardage has recently served as President of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists (2011 – 2012). In early 2019 Dr. Hardage retired as full time Senior Research Scientist at the Bureau of Economic Geology, The University of Texas at Austin. There, he headed the Bureau’s Exploration Geophysics Laboratory, an Industrial Associates Program focused on developing seismic vector-wavefield technology for improved reservoir characterization and prospect evaluation.

He is one of the world’s leading experts in 3-D multi-component seismic technology and Vertical Seismic Profiling (borehole geophysics), seismic stratigraphy, and reservoir characterization. His previous industry experience is extensive, spanning 26 years of geophysical research and exploration management at Phillips Petroleum Company and at Western Atlas.

Dr. Hardage received a Ph.D. in physics from Oklahoma State University. He was the lead author of a book entitled Multicomponent Seismic Technology, published in 2011, which is a seminal work in the field. Dr. Hardage has authored many publications, including Vertical Seismic Profiling: Principles, the third and revised edition of which was published by Pergamon in 2000. He has also served as editor of professional journals Geophysics (1993 & 1995) and Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering (1995 & 1998), and has edited books for the Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG), such as Planning Land 3-D Seismic Surveys, published by SEG in 2000.

Dr. Hardage received a Special Commendation Award (3-D Seismic Technology) from SEG in 1998. He was also awarded the A. I. Levorsen Memorial Award for Best Paper presented at the 2001 Southwest Section, American Association of Petroleum Geologists annual meeting.

Paul Molnar has played a key role in Diamondback’s meteoric growth since he joined the company in August 2011, prior to the IPO. Mr. Molnar joined Diamondback in August 2011 as Vice President – Geoscience and was promoted to Executive V.P.-Exploration & Business Development in January 2017.  Prior to that he served as a Senior District Geologist for Samson Investment Company, an oil and gas exploration company, from March 2011 to August 2011, where he evaluated horizontal plays in the Delaware Basin.  Mr. Molnar has also held leadership positions at ConocoPhillips as Rockies Geoscience Supervisor and Wyoming Asset Supervisor from April 2006 to February 2011, and was a geologic advisor for Burlington Resources from December 1996 until their acquisition by ConocoPhillips in April 2006.  He was recruited by Exxon in 1981, where he held various technical positions in Exploration and Production.  Mr. Molnar obtained his BS in Geoscience from the NY State College at Buffalo in 1978, and after a year with Core Labs as a well site geologist in Oklahoma, obtained his MS in Geology from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1981.  He is a licensed Professional Geoscientist in the states of Texas and Wyoming.

Gary Scott is a petroleum engineer with expertise in evaluating the technical and economic merits of oil and gas projects. His experience in operations, coupled with his engineering background, gives him a well-rounded foundation in taking an oil and gas project all the way from concept to production, and a vision spanning from the big picture down to all the moving parts that can make or break a project. His breadth and depth of experience gives him a unique perspective that not all have the opportunity to develop in our highly specialized industry.

Previously, Mr. Scott managed and was a principal owner of Ulfberht Energy Holdings, LLC, founded in 2012. Gary and three other investors comprised the core group of Ulfberht Energy. Ulfberht built a non-operated and royalty interest portfolio with emphasis on Permian Basin and Mid-Continent projects.

In 2001, Gary joined with David Fowler (now President of Ring Energy, Inc. [NYSE: REI]) to form Simplex Energy Solutions, LLC to market oil and gas properties regionally, with a focus on the Permian Basin. After nearly 12 years and 157 deal closings worth over $650 million, Gary and David sold the company to begin new pursuits.

In 1999, Gary went out on his own, forming his own production company, Praxis Energy, LLC, acquiring and operating leases in the giant East Texas Field.

In 1993, Gary left Mobil to work for a small but growing production company in Fort Worth, Texas called Lomak Production, which later grew to become Range Resources (NYSE:RRC). Duties expanded to include drilling, reservoir and production oversight and development over two core areas in East Texas (Laura LaVelle, S. Field) and the Permian Basin (Farmer Field).

Gary began his post-college career working in the giant Sho-Vel-Tum Field in southern Oklahoma as a production engineer with Mobil E&P, US. His responsibilities included all facets of production monitoring, remedial and stimulation workover programs, completions, and special projects.

In 1987 Gary earned a BS in Petroleum Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines.

Rick Lewis is the Shale Petrophysics Technical Manager for Schlumberger Oilfield Services in Oklahoma City. He is a leading expert in the interpretation of unconventional resource evaluation, particularly relating to well log analysis, and travels the world interpreting logs and assessing mostly unconventional resources. Rick was a developer of the gas shale evaluation workflow that was initially fielded eight years ago and has been applied to more than 1,000 wells in North America.

In his current position, Rick manages a group responsible for the continual improvement for this workflow, and for its introduction and application to the international market. He is also the interface to the Schlumberger research and engineering groups for the development of evaluation technologies for organic shales. Prior to this assignment, Rick was responsible for wireline interpretation development for the central and eastern United States. Rick has also worked for Shell Oil and the U.S. Geological Survey.

Mr. Lewis received a BS degree from UCLA and MS and PhD degrees from Cal Tech, all in geology.

Umber Mayer has over three decades of entrepreneurial, accounting, tax, marketing, administrative and consulting experience, primarily as a principal in family energy businesses. In 1982 she helped build and operate A. J. Mayer International, Inc., an acquisitions, divestiture and financial consulting firm specializing in the coal industry. Here Umber served as consultant as well as the company controller and office manager. In the 1990s Mrs. Mayer helped to organize, fund, and successfully operate Pennsylvania Coal Company, Inc. Her primary responsibilities were as company controller and government compliance administrator. During this same period she formed, owned and successfully operated Tulip Coal Sales Company, Inc., a minority coal brokerage concern which sold coal for Pennsylvania Coal Company and others.

As a founding principal and board member of Green Century Resources, Mrs. Mayer serves as controller with additional responsibilities as investor relations lead.  She also helps with state government permitting and compliance activities.

Umber Mayer has a BA in Economics from Bryn Mawr College.

James Mayer has a broad entrepreneurial background in energy, management, project development, corporate finance, operations, sales and marketing.  His diverse, multi-disciplinary background provides a unique platform for innovation, creative problem solving, and wealth generation in the oil & gas business.

Mayer’s previous work experiences have provided unique and valuable background for the development of a large oil and gas company.

While earning his MBA at the Wharton School, in 1980 Mr. Mayer formed an acquisitions, divestiture and financial consulting firm specializing in the coal industry, A. J. Mayer International, Inc. For about a decade he advised on M&A and financial transactions and undertook assignments for a broad array of domestic and international clients, including Fortune 500 companies and privately owned concerns.

In the 1990s Mr. Mayer organized, owned and successfully operated Pennsylvania Coal Company, Inc. In this capacity he was responsible for all facets of a coal exploration and multi-operations surface mining company.  Pennsylvania Coal Company’s slogan was “Dedicated to Integrity and Excellence, Concerned for Our Communities and Our Environment,” and Mayer and his staff lived by this creed. The result was that in the company’s history it never had a material environmental or safety violation and made many friends with regulators and members of the communities it operated in—all while achieving high productivity, low cost, and strong profitability.  Pennsylvania Coal had its own full-time drilling crew that operated a company-owned mobile rotary air drill rig for coal exploration and for coring coal and rock samples.

In the coal industry Mayer gained valuable experience in geology, engineering, land, operations (including drilling), project development, logistics, and personnel management.  All of these coal industry experiences have translated well into the oil & gas business.

In 2005, after selling his coal business, Mr. Mayer returned to the energy consulting business. His emphasis expanded from coal to include gasification, biomass, oil & gas, combined heat and power, and CO2 solutions with emphasis on CO2 EOR. One of Jim’s clients was former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, and he continued to act as an energy adviser to Speaker Gingrich through his 2012 Presidential campaign.

Jim Mayer has an MBA with a dual major in finance and accounting from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and a B.S. in business administration from the University of Maine. In association with his past investment banking activities, he was licensed by the National Association of Securities Dealers (the NASD) as a general broker dealer “representative” and as a broker/dealer “principal” for direct participation programs including limited partnerships.

Mr. Perry has extensive experience finding, funding, investing in, and operating quality oil and gas projects in the Permian Basin of West Texas.  A key part of his success is finding and securing quality reserves to drill.  Wes and his land team have expertise in in-house, organic land acquisition programs that assemble acreage blocks suitable for drilling horizontal wells in all viable benches.  Through his proven acquisition methods he and his team have acquired attractive leasehold positions throughout the Midland Basin.  Wes and his team are active advisors to Green Century, with particular emphasis on Green Century’s leasing, farm-ins, and acquisitions.

Wes served as President of EGL Resources, Inc., an oil and gas operations company based in Texas and New Mexico, from January 1994 until July 2008, before becoming the Chief Executive Officer. He has also served as Managing Partner of PBEX, LLC since July 2012.  Wes has served as a director of Genie Energy, Ltd. (NYSE: GNE) since September 2009 and is chairman of the audit committee. He also serves as Chairman of Genie Energy International Corporation. He is a director of Viper Energy (VNOM), director of First Southern National Bank, and served as a director of UTG, Inc. from July 2005 to June 2013. He served as a director of American Capital Insurance Company and Texas Imperial Life Insurance Company from 2006 to 2009 and as a director of Western National Bank from 2005 to 2009. Wes has owned and operated SES Investments, Ltd., an oil and gas investment company, since 1980.

Mr. Perry served two terms as the Mayor of Midland, Texas, from January 2008 through January 2014.  He also served on the Midland City Council as an at-large councilperson from 2002 to 2008.

Wes holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering from the University of Oklahoma.

Joe Williamson is an expert in production operations and a host of downhole procedures including drilling, workovers, re-entries, and fishing. Mr. Williamson currently serves as the Area Manager for Basic Energy’s large Midland-Odessa, Texas Fishing Tool and Rental business. There he is responsible for a diverse rental business of approximately $80 million annually in oil field tools and equipment. Joe has broad and deep experience in oil and gas operations, and his advice is often sought by Green Century.

Joe has served Basic Energy for ten years managing the Fishing Tool and Rental division. Prior to Basic, Joe worked as an independent operations consultant. Before that he was the owner of a trucking company serving the oil & gas industry—his trucking company owned and operated about 40 trucks. Mr. Williamson served ten years as an oil field production foreman for Patterson Drilling (now Patterson UTI). He got his start in the oil business as a roustabout.

Adam Mayer has extensive experience designing, developing, and deploying mission-critical information and industrial automation systems. Since joining Green Century in 2011, he has developed our proprietary Wildcat™ discovery system and our ReflexOS™ SCADA/IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things) system.  Wildcat™ allows Green Century to sift through vast quantities of well and production data to rapidly identify and evaluate high quality oil and gas prospects.  ReflexOS™ is a fully customizable industrial automation system that allows Green Century to remotely monitor and control its oil and gas operations, offering capabilities such as tank level, pressure, flow rate, and pump performance monitoring, pump control, and video surveillance.

Adam been intimately involved in all aspect of oil and gas development, from prospect identification and analysis, to project financing, drilling and completions, and production. His hands-on industry experience gives him the knowledge base to develop and apply technology in insightful and innovative ways to help Green Century find high quality reserves, maximize oil recovery, and minimize cost. The oilfield generates massive data, and Mr. Mayer’s ability to transform this “big data” into actionable intelligence gives Green Century a distinct competitive advantage.

Before coming to Green Century, Adam worked as an IT consultant at Accenture, a Fortune Global 500 IT and management consulting company. While at Accenture, Adam managed a team that developed, maintained, and improved business intelligence systems providing insight into the award and disbursement of more than $100 billion annually in loans and grants for an Accenture Diamond Client.

Adam Mayer earned his Bachelor’s degree at Wake Forest University, with a double major in Business and Computer Science.

Randall Taylor has over thirty years of drilling experience with a wide variety of rigs drilling vertical, horizontal and high angled directional wells. He has drilled in six different countries including: Bahrain (offshore and land), Qatar, Iran (offshore), United States (offshore and land), Canada and Venezuela.

Mr. Taylor currently consults full-time for the large independent oil & gas company Laredo Petroleum, working from their Midland, Texas office. At Laredo he oversees the operations of two vertical Sprayberry/Wolfberry rigs and four horizontal Cline and Wolfcamp rigs with responsibilities that include the development of drilling programs and AFE’s.

Randall has been a pioneer in horizontal drilling. In 2003 he founded Black Viper Energy Services, serving as the President and CEO through mid-2012. He built Black Viper into a substantial horizontal drilling services company, which at its height did more than $30 million in annual sales. Related activities included the design and building of his own mud lubricated bearing assemblies for mud motors and the development of his own line of matrix body PDC drilling bits through Viper Bit Manufacturing and Taylor Cryogenics.

Before Black Viper, Randall opened and managed a Midland office for the directional drilling services company Ryan Energy Technologies. Prior to that he worked for Schlumberger: first as their Short Radius and Under Balanced Manager, responsible for all short radius and under balanced drilling operations in the United States, South America and Canada; and later as Schlumberger’s Permian Basin Services Manager for Drilling and Measurements.

Almost a decade of prior directional drilling experience was gained as a drilling supervisor for Ensco Technology, Drillex and Strata Technology. Randall also has eleven years overseas experience with Santa Fe Drilling as drilling foreman, driller, assistant driller, and rig mechanic on both land and off shore drilling operations. His vast experience includes moving rigs, logging and coring, running under reamers, fishing, and drilling water wells.

Mr. Taylor graduated from Oklahoma State Technical School, Okmulgee, Oklahoma.

Arlen Edgar is a respected senior member of the Midland, Texas, oil and gas community, a successful independent oil & gas investor, and an experienced petroleum engineer and executive. He has been an oil industry investor for about three decades. Arlen Edgar began his career with Pan American Petroleum in 1957 as a junior petroleum engineer. After four years, he joined Leibrock, Landreth, Campbell and Callaway, a consulting engineering firm, becoming manager of the consulting division. At the same time, he served as secretary and a director of Canada-based Kanata Exploration and southern Louisiana-based Offshore Exploration Company.

In 1967, Mr. Edgar joined Robert M. Leibrock’s new company, Tipperary Land and Exploration, which was involved in farming, cattle, shrimp fishing and hard minerals. While working for Tipperary, he spent time exploring Australia, discovering a major bauxite deposit there. After four years with Tipperary, Arlen joined Western States Producing Company as general manager of the San Antonio-based oil & gas company’s Midland office.

In 1973 Arlen Edgar decided to branch off on his own. He started out doing petroleum engineering consulting and gradually began participating in drilling deals as an investor, and buying oil wells, production royalties, and oil & gas mineral rights. He now spends his time investing in drilling deals while also staying involved with professional organizations and community and church activities.

Arlen Edgar earned a BS in petroleum engineering from The University of Texas at Austin in 1957. He has served as the President of the respected Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) and was has recently recognized as a Distinguished Engineering Graduate of the University of Texas Austin’s Cockrell School of Engineering. Arlen has received many awards from organizations such as the Society of Petroleum Engineer, the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers, the Society of Petroleum Evaluation Engineers, and the Society of Independent Professional Earth Scientists, as well as various other recognitions for his many achievements. Among these were the Top Hand Award from the Permian Basin Petroleum Association and the Hearst Energy Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Midland Reporter-Telegram.

John provides expert fracing and completion design and field management services to Green Century. He is currently Vice President of Engineering for Log Analysis Solutions, a Professional Engineering firm located in Midland, Texas. Here he provides fracing and completions design and management consulting services to a broad host of clients. John is very highly regarded as a leading frac and completions expert in the Permian Basin and beyond. Prior to working for LAS, Mr. Blevins worked in a wide variety of operational roles for Berry Petroleum and BOPCO. He started his career as a completions engineer for Dowell, before leaving to work for Sierra Engineering.

Mr. Blevins has over 19 years of oil & gas industry experience. He earned a Petroleum Engineering degree from Texas A&M University in 1994.

Mike Curry is VP Land & Sr. Counsel at a large independent oil and gas exploration and production company, and previously a shareholder at Cotton, Bledsoe, Tighe & Dawson in Midland, Texas. He is Board Certified in Oil, Gas and Mineral Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization, is a former member of the State Bar of Texas Oil, Gas and Energy Resources Council, and is also licensed to practice in New Mexico. He is a member, past director, and former President of the Permian Basin Landmen’s Association. Mike is a past Chairman of the Forms Committee for the American Association of Professional Landmen and currently serves on the task forces for the 2013 operating agreement revision and the Certified Professional Landman examination. In addition, he has served two terms, including one as chairman, on the City of Midland Planning and Zoning Commission.

Mr. Curry frequently prepares oil and gas title opinions, including all types of drilling, division order, and acquisition title opinions covering state, federal, and privately owned lands in Texas and New Mexico. The drafting of deeds, leases, operating agreements, farmout agreements, oil and gas leases and assignments, purchase and sale agreements, lending documentation, and similar documents necessary to explore for and develop oil and gas both onshore and offshore is also a regular part of Mike’s practice.

Mike often teams up with members of the firm’s Litigation Section when oil and gas matters are involved in a lawsuit. Mike has participated in state and federal court cases involving construction and enforcement of operating agreements, operator removal problems, areas of mutual interest, Relinquishment Act claims, partition of producing properties, gas processing claims, class actions, and other oil and gas related matters. From time to time he serves as an expert witness in complex oil and gas disputes involving exploration agreements, operating agreements and areas of mutual intent.

Mr. Curry has worked as a landman in the oil and gas industry and in the coal and lignite industry prior to law school. His land experience includes all aspects of the oil and gas industry and ranges geographically from the Gulf Coast to the Rocky Mountains. Mike worked as an independent landman, a field supervisor for a large brokerage company, and an in-house landman for a major oil company. He is a Certified Professional Landman.

Mike graduated from the University of Texas and has a JD, cum laude, from Texas Tech University School of Law.

Henry McElroy’s oil & gas well drilling business experience is extensive. He has built and managed several large drilling companies headquartered in the Permian Basin.

Henry is currently Drilling Operations Manager for Longfellow Energy, LP, a company owned by billionaire Malone Mitchell. He most recently served as Co-founder, Vice President, Managing Partner and Drilling Manger for Viking Drilling, LLC., another of Malone Mitchell’s companies. Henry started Viking from scratch with Malone in 2007, purchasing, refurbishing, staffing, and managing a fleet that has grown to 10 “triple” drill rigs working in the U.S. and abroad. Henry remains a minority shareholder in Viking Drilling.

Mr. McElroy began his career in 1970 with Tom Brown, Inc. as a roughneck. He moved up quickly to become the youngest tool pusher and then superintendent in the Tom Brown organization. After gaining additional operating and management experience working for a variety of companies in the West Texas and Southeastern New Mexico oil fields, Henry joined Lakota Drilling in 1992 as Drilling Superintendent. Subsequently Lakota was purchased by Key Energy and Henry continued working for the new owner managing day-to-day operations. In early 1998 Henry joined Big Dog Drilling as Drilling Superintendent, where he grew the business from three to fourteen active rigs.

In 2004 Mr. McElroy joined Riata Energy/Lariat Services, Inc. where he served as Drilling Manager and Operations Manager until 2006. During his tenure Mr. McElroy expanded the fleet to include 42 Drilling rigs and about 30 pulling units. Henry also formed Hondo Heavy Haul Trucking for Riata that grew to a fleet of 80 trucks, and he managed the daily operations of Larco Air Service, comprised of eight complete air packages.

Steve McClaine is President of Hickman McClaine & Associates, Inc., a leading petroleum engineering consulting firm in Midland, Texas. Mr. McClaine, a petroleum engineer, has a broad range of expertise and experience spanning across the conventional and unconventional oil & gas exploration and production spectrum. Over his 32 years in the business, Steve has served as a petroleum engineer for Dow Chemical’s Dowell Division (focusing on enhanced oil recovery), The Wiser Oil Company (one of the oldest independent oil and gas companies in the United States), and Roaring Springs Energy, LLC. From 2006 to 2008 he served as Manager of U.S. Operations for PetroGlobe Energy, Inc. Steve has also gained valuable field operating know-how as a drilling and production consultant. His waterflooding experience is extensive, having worked on water floods in the Permian Basin, Indiana, Michigan, and eastern Kentucky. Steve has proven expertise in reservoir and project evaluation and development, well log interpretation, integrated field studies, production and cash flow forecasting, and waterflood surveillance and monitoring. He has a B.A. in Petroleum Engineering from Texas Tech University.

Bill Cobb is President Emeritus of William M. Cobb & Associates, Inc. Bill has over 40 years of experience as a petroleum engineering consultant specializing in waterflooding, pressure transient analysis, and property management. He has conducted numerous one-week short courses on the subjects of waterflooding, pressure transient analysis, and petroleum economics. His industry experience includes employment with major and independent oil companies.

In 1983, he formed William M. Cobb & Associates, Inc. and served as President until his retirement in December, 2010. During this period he oversaw the growth of the firm from startup to an internationally recognized petroleum engineering and geological consulting firm.

Bill served on the petroleum engineering staff at Mississippi State, where he taught reservoir engineering courses. He has served on numerous committees for the Society of Professional Engineers (SPE), including the Reservoir Engineering Program Committee, Publications Review Committee, Distinguished Author Series Committee, and Chairman of the Formation Evaluation Committee. Dr. Cobb was the 2008 SPE President and a member of the Board of Directors. Previously he served as Vice-President of Finance for SPEI. He also served as a Distinguished Lecturer for SPE members in 1995. In 1999, he was presented with the SPE Reservoir Engineer Award. He is currently an adjunct professor of Petroleum Engineering at Texas A&M University.

Bill received BS and MS degrees from Mississippi State University in 1966 and a PhD from Stanford University, all in Petroleum Engineering.