John H. Campbell III
John H. Campbell III most recently served as chief executive officer of Percussion Petroleum, LLC in Houston. Campbell grew up in The Woodlands, Texas and graduated from Oak Ridge High School in 2004.
He initially matriculated to Tulane University to study mechanical engineering. After Hurricane Katrina, he transferred to The University of Texas to study petroleum engineering. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in petroleum engineering and moved to Houston in 2009, where he began his career in the oil and gas business with El Paso E&P (El Paso).
He served in various engineering roles during his time at El Paso, first completing a two-year training program and then working as a drilling engineer in the Eagle Ford Shale. In 2012, after El Paso was acquired by Kinder Morgan he left for a smaller company, Quantum Resources Energy, LP (Quantum). Quantum was a publicly traded master limited partnership where Campbell learned about mature conventional company operations. While at Quantum, Campbell was a production and completions engineer in the Ark-La-Tex, Mid-Con and Permian Basins. After Quantum merged with Breitburn Energy Partners, LP, in 2014, Campbell went to Rockcliff Energy, LLC (Rockcliff) as business development engineer.
His responsibilities at Rockcliff Energy included acquisitions and divestitures, relationship management and proprietary deal sourcing. He was ultimately involved with the successful monetization of Rockcliff Energy I assets in North Louisiana to Memorial Resources in 2015. After the sale, he decided to start his own company, Percussion Petroleum, LLC (Percussion).
Campbell served as CEO of Percussion which he co-founded with two partners whom he worked with at Quantum and Rockcliff. This organization was funded by private equity financial sponsor, Carnelian Energy Capital, and was formed to pursue an acquisition and exploitation strategy in select onshore basins in North America. Percussion made its initial investment in New Mexico’s Permian Basin in 2016 with just three employees and eventually grew to more than 60 employees, more than 10,000 barrels per day of production on 25,000 acres and more than $100mm of run rate EBITDA. Percussion successfully sold all its assets in June 2019 to Spur Energy Partners, LLC.
Campbell continues to be active in the energy space, and he and his wife Saia live in Houston and have two children, Tesla and John IV.
