The University of Tulsa's Petroleum Engineering Department

A fifty year veteran in the oil and gas business, Jerry received his M.S. in Engineering Management from the University of Tulsa in 1971, at night school, while working for Sinclair Oil and Gas Corporation in their Economics and Reserves department. Prior to moving to Tulsa, Jerry worked in the Permian Basin and West Texas for seven years.

Upon graduating from Texas Tech in 1955 with a B.S. in Petroleum Engineering, Jerry worked for Gulf Oil Corporation in Crane, Texas, writing procedures for Frac Jobs and checking on drilling rigs. Standard frac treatment was 10,000 gallons of refined oil and 20,000 pounds of 20/40 sand. Gulf had 55 drilling rigs working, and over 2,000 producing wells in the area. "We fraced at least one well every working day."

He later moved to Midland and went to work for Anderson Prichard Oil Corporation as a production engineer, working the north end of the basin from Midland to the Slaughter and Levelland fields. He was responsible for compliance with Railroad Commission Rules and Regulations, together with maintenance of production on about 350 wells in 20+ fields. Field work, on an as needed basis, included supervising coring, logging and drill stem testing on drilling wells, and construction of production and salt water facilities. Well depths ranged from 3,000 to 14,000 feet.

In 1962, Jerry and his family moved to Tulsa on a management development program with the Norris Division of the Dover Corporation, where he was an applications engineer and an assistant to a Vice President. In 1963, he was transferred to the S.M. Jones division as Chief Engineer, where he responsible to the President for all engineering functions including manufacturing, field applications and equipment failures and complaints. He also served on an API Rod Production Equipment and Systems Task Force, that set standards for material and equipment.

Returning to the oil and gas production side of the business in 1965, Jerry went to work for Sinclair Oil and Gas Corporation as a petroleum engineer, advancing to senior evaluation engineer in the Economics and Reserves Department. His responsibilities included establishing and maintaining corporate oil and gas reserves for properties in the Mid-continent Region, reviewing economics on development drilling wells, conducting special economic studies which included preparing an annual five year evaluation of exploration and development drilling programs, evaluations for carve out loans, reserve estimates for new exploration programs and undeveloped reserves, and negotiation and arbitration of gas reserves for contractual purposes. He was in-house consultant to the Ad Valorem tax department, and served as an expert for the company in local and statewide hearings in Kansas.

With the merger with ARCO in 1969, Jerry went to work for Keplinger and Associates in the Tulsa office as a senior evaluation engineer, and later Vice President. Responsibilities included appraisal of oil and gas properties for acquisition, sale, taxes, mergers, and reserve estimates for compliance with SEC filings, and evaluation of geological prospects and gas contracts. Represented clients in financial transactions, and served as an expert witness in IRS matters, State and Federal Courts, and at SEC filings.

He also served as Engineering Advisor to the Oil and Gas Board of the State of Tennessee, where he advised the board on all engineering and conservation matters, and served as expert for the State at hearings and other venues.

In 1974, when the price of crude oil reached $10 a barrel, Jerry co-founded an investment company and a management firm with partners from out of state. Together they drilled wells, and acquired, operated and managed oil and gas properties until 1998, when they sold the production and terminated the partnerships.

Jerry is a licensed professional engineer with registration in Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Wyoming. Jerry has served as an expert witness in many venues, including the Texas Railroad Commission, Oklahoma Corporation Commission, Federal and State Courts, Kansas property tax hearings, and presentation of testimony on oil and gas reserves to the Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington D.C.

Jerry is a member of Pi Epsilon Tau, SPEE, API, the Tulsa Geological Society, AAPL, and TAPL. He is a Legion of Honor member of SPE. He has served as chair of the SPE Mid-Continent section and SPEE Tulsa Chapter, worked on the 2004 IOR committee, and is currently Chair of Professional Matters and Awards for the Mid-Continent Section.

He presently serves on the SPE global Engineering Professionalism Committee, which he chaired in 2005. As a representative of SPE in Tulsa, he is the 2005-06 President of the Tulsa Engineering Foundation; TEF provides outreach programs directed to high school students, with a view towards introducing them to engineering as a profession. He is also a member of the Tulsa Rotary Club.

Jerry has lived in Tulsa Oklahoma with his family for the last 44 years. Jerry and his wife, Pat, married in 1956. They have three children and four grandchildren. They think Tulsa and TU are great institutions and plan to remain there for many years.

Jerry continues to work as a consulting petroleum engineer and to manage and participate in investments in the oil and gas business.

Why did you Choose TU?

The professors at TU were kind to teach courses in the Evening School. This enabled us to attend college at night and to maintain our day job. I also had several friends who were working on master's degrees at TU at night. They highly recommended TU and the teachers, and encouraged me to register and get started. I had no idea what a great university TU was, and is, until I studied here for three years, and met the professors and the students who now are recognized around the world for their accomplishments.

How did TU prepare you for your job?

Dr. Kermit Brown, my advisor, worked with me to design a degree program that would fit with my job at the time and my plans for the future. Of course, the professors, "the teachers", are the people who prepared us for our work in our profession. Most of them had earned their Ph.D. and were specialists in their fields. All of them brought unique knowledge and experiences to the classroom and were excellent teachers. They taught applications along with the theory; that enabled us to make better use of the material we had learned, and translated into our being better engineers and managers.

Any fond memories you would like to share?

As a student, a husband, a father and a practicing engineer, my fond memories centered around the course work and my studies. I worked on special studies under Dr. E. T. Guerrero and Dr. Don Hellinder. They were wonderful mentors, who directed my studies, answered my questions, challenged me to dig a little deeper and to learn. Of course, the fondest memory was walking across the stage to receive the diploma that we had worked on for three years.

Other Comments:

Recounting highlights of those 50 years, every era had exciting times.

I am a second generation "oil field hand". My father was a tool pusher in SE New Mexico and West Texas until he retired in 1942 to go back to the farms where he grew up, and I subsequently was reared and attended school.

My father is the reason I studied petroleum engineering and became a P.E. When I graduated from high school, I had several majors in mind, but he told me that I was going to Texas Tech and become a petroleum engineer. I asked what petroleum engineers did, and he replied that they do a lot of things, but the main thing is that they always have a good job. That has proven to be true - and will probably hold true for many, many years in the future.

He seldom gave me advice, but some of the best advice was that "people make your job", and "if you don’t understand something - ask questions! If you listen and don’t mind getting your hands dirty, they will show you what you need to know and help you accomplish what you are trying to do". That always worked for me.

I would have preferred that this bio be about the people I have worked with, instead about me. I always had magnificent bosses - and academic teachers.

I have already mentioned the professors at TU; I had good teachers at Tech and in high school. My mother was a school teacher when she was young. She always saw that I did my homework. She also liked math; we had a lot of fun working math problems together.

I would like to take a minute to talk about some of my bosses, some of my jobs and some of the lessons I learned.

While working for the Dover Corporation, I served on API task forces on Rod Pumping Equipment and Applications. In those meetings, the product managers and engineers for the major steel manufacturers led many of the discussions. I was the young engineer in the meetings, and they always emphasized to me that "Detail Makes the Product". That was also the watch word around the Norris and Jones plants. The habit of "looking at the detail" has served me well over the years.

Now, I want to write a few lines about Henry Keplinger. I had worked on a few projects with Mr. Keplinger and was acquainted with him when I worked at Sinclair. When the announcement was made that ARCO was the survivor in the Sinclair merger, he called me and asked me to have coffee with him. The meeting was short. Henry said, "Often in these mergers people are left with few choices. You have a job with our company! If you are not happy with the ARCO offers, you can use that for strength if you need to negotiate". Of course, when the opportunity came to make a decision, I went to work for Keplinger and Associates without making any enquiries as to what was available elsewhere.

The work at Keplinger was challenging and fun and demanding. Henry was a wonderful mentor and a very knowledgeable oil man. It seemed that he always had the correct solution to any problem that occurred. A typical situation: once when we were reviewing drilling prospects for a client, they had a limited budget and I was trying to decide between two wells that were very similar, but also risky. I showed the data to Henry; he instantly said, "Drill both of them". We recommended a smaller interest than offered, and we participated in two good wells.

Mr. Keplinger sent me all over the US to check drilling prospects and acquisitions for clients. Henry often walked into my office with a map or a file in his hand and said, could you go to a given area or town and check this deal for us. I would look at the map and see that it was an area I had never worked. I would then look at Henry and he would say, "It will be ok". Then he would point out the discovery well in the area and tell me a little about that well and the field. Many times, I boarded an airplane with my heart in my throat because I had little knowledge of the project or the people I was going to meet - and it always was an important project for our client. In the end, however, "It always worked out ok".

The biography on Charles Henry Keplinger, "Without Fear or Favor", written by his son "Kep" was exactly true. Henry Keplinger always lived up to the title of that book - he never showed fear or favor. He always called the shots as they lay, and did what he knew he had to do. He instructed us to do the same! He also lived by the caption on the back cover "The most important thing you have to offer is your integrity."

That will always hold true. I am always proud to see the Keplinger Building on the TU campus housing the petroleum engineering and physical sciences departments and learning facilities. The building could not have a more fitting name to demonstrate the goals one should set as a person and an engineer or geo-scientist.

If people remember nothing more than "The most important thing you have to offer is your integrity." the time I spent in writing this and your time in reading it will have been well spent.