UT PGE Recognizes 2022 Distinguished Alumni

The award is given annually to UT PGE alumni who are leaders in the oil and gas industry — educators, executives, innovators and entrepreneurs with unmatched industry expertise.

This year’s recipients reflect UT PGE’s commitment to educating the world’s best petroleum and subsurface engineers and equipping them with the exceptional skills needed to provide sustainable, affordable and reliable energy for the world:

Robert MacDonald (1941-2014)

M.S., Petroleum Engineering, 1970
Ph.D., Petroleum Engineering, 1972

Robert “Bob” MacDonald (1941–2014) was born in Detroit, Michigan, to Claude and Ruth MacDonald. He attended public schools in Royal Oak and graduated from Kimball High School where he excelled in trumpet and was voted “Most Likely to Succeed.” In 1963, Bob received Bachelor of Science degrees in Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering from the University of Michigan (during which time he also performed with the marching band). While there, Bob met Martha Varnell, a graduate music student, and they married in 1962. After five years as a reservoir engineer with Michigan Consolidated Gas, he accepted an offer from Professor Keith Coats to come to The University of Texas at Austin as a graduate student in the Petroleum Engineering department. Bob, Martha and their two children, Robert and Richard, loaded up a U-Haul van and moved to Austin in 1968.

Bob’s supervising professors at UT Austin, Keith Coats and Harold Silberberg, were both great influences during his professional life. His doctoral committee also included Ben Caudle, Thomas Dixon and G.W. Stewart. The Texas Petroleum Research Commission funded Bob’s work at UT Austin, which included his PhD dissertation titled “Reservoir Simulation with Interphase Mass Transfer.” He received his Master of Science in 1970 and his PhD in 1972. Bob then joined Intercomp in Houston as a petroleum engineering consultant and in 1975 was promoted to vice president and general manager of their European operations in the Netherlands. During this time he performed reservoir engineering studies on fields around the world. Bob returned to Texas in 1978 to accept the position of associate professor in the Petroleum Engineering department at UT Austin. He later took leadership roles at Intera Petroleum Consultants and Intera Technologies. When Bob joined Platt Sparks and Associates as a partner in 1988, he testified as expert witness before various regulatory bodies and trial courts and served as a court’s expert. Bob continued teaching at UT Austin as an adjunct associate professor until 2012. He was a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, the National Society of Professional Engineers and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.

Bob and Martha enjoyed travels together and spending time with family, including grandchildren Katherine and Yarrow. He had a dry wit and maintained a lifelong appreciation for music, art and history — as well as good food and wine.

Myra Dria

Ph.D., Petroleum Engineering, 1988

Myra Dria is founder, president and CEO of Pearl Resources LLC, which has operated in the Delaware Basin since 2011. A Texas-registered professional engineer, Myra also founded Opal Resources in 2007 and served as president and CEO while it operated in the Midland Basin as a co-venture with Goldman Sachs until its first asset sale to W&T Offshore in 2011. In 2018, she was named to Hart Energy’s inaugural “25 Most Influential Women in Energy” list. Across her career with rigor and imagination, Myra applied an insatiable appetite for learning and challenging the “norm.” She earned a Case Western Reserve University BS engineering degree (polymer), and in the late 1970s, the Sohio engineer traveled to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, contributing to establishing standards for seawater injection in the 2 MMBWPD Prudhoe Bay waterflood. This sparked her interest in facility design and downhole formation damage and led her to earn a PhD in Petroleum Engineering with advisors Dr. Larry Lake and Dr. Robert Schechter at UT Austin.

With her PhD, Myra moved into enhanced oil recovery (EOR) at Shell while working with leading EOR technology experts. She applied this knowledge in the field before focusing on developing management experience at Western Atlas. As division manager, she established an Integrated Studies business unit and led her 29-member team to win the proposal to redevelop the PEMEX Cantarell mega field, providing recommendations that added 600,000 BOPD immediately and ultimately lifted Cantarell production to 2.2 MMBOPD. Myra then went on to work as Amoco’s EPTG reservoir and production technology director where she led the effort to fully integrate seismic, geology, drilling, reservoir and production technologies for improved delivery to the asset teams. She then enjoyed serving on Amoco’s PQT (Prospect Quality Team) and later with BP on their XQA (Exploitation Quality Assurance) team. As chief of staff to BP America’s president, she championed technology applications in BP’s Latin America ventures and delivered a Latin America gas resources assessment to Lord Browne. Continuing at BP as the MidCon BU’s drilling and operations manager, she managed 28 rigs running in five states and optimized infrastructure operations to eliminate production bottlenecks. As SENM asset manager, she managed BP assets and discovered huge untapped opportunities in New Mexico. This career milestone stimulated her goal to ‘Find Gems Missed by Others’ under her Opal and Pearl ventures.

Myra is a five-time international figure skating gold medalist in the US and Canada. This former coach is a highly ranked US National Figure Skating competitor (1971) and a Gold and International judge.

Chuck Farmer

B.S., Petroleum Engineering, 1981

When Chuck Farmer’s tenuous football career at The University of Texas at Austin was cut short (fortunately) by injuries, he switched to Petroleum Engineering. He graduated with a BS in May 1981 and went to work for Anadarko Petroleum in Denver, Colorado, and then worked for various independents and did rotational drilling duty with Amoco International in the Middle East and North Sea. In 1987, he took a job with Plains Petroleum as an acquisition engineer and soon moved to Midland as a district manager. In the following two years, Plains built its net production from 500 to 3,000 net BOPD; drilled a successful (500 BOPD, 500 MCFD) Canyon horizontal well in Knox County, Texas; and drilled one of the first Wolfcamp horizontal wells in the Midland Basin. In 1990 he was promoted to manager of corporate development, bringing in approximately $80 million in acquisitions, executing multiple infill drilling programs and creating dynamic cashflow growth.

In 1993, Chuck formed Saga Petroleum Corp in partnership with Brent Morse with $75,000 in capital to acquire and exploit properties in the Permian Basin. Over the years, they grew to operate in seven states; became the fifth largest oil producer in New Mexico; had over 100 employees, including a full staff of technical and financial personnel operating 95 percent of Saga assets; ran seven Saga-owned workover units; and owned and operated over 30,000 acres in SE New Mexico in a Morrow exploration program with Pure Resources (Unocal). Saga operated large compression, gathering and pipeline systems; successfully drilled 2- and 3D prospects; drilled large infill projects; and drilled horizontal wells in the Mowry formation in NW Wyoming and the San Andres formation in West Texas. Over 28 years, Saga created over $200 million in monetization value. Chuck and Brent Morse divested their last property in
Saga in 2021.

Chuck has twice served on UT PGE’s executive advisory committee and been its chair. He also served on Midland’s Economic Development and Water Resource Committee and has been a board member for the First Tee of the Permian Basin, Rocky Mountain Oil and Gas Association, New Mexico Independent Producers Association, Permian Basin Petroleum Association, Colorado Special Olympics, Western States Cutting Horse Association, and the Midland SPCA. In 2004, Chuck and his wife, Dana, formed the Silver Lining Foundation to help the disadvantaged, including the homeless and young people unable to afford quality education. To date, Silver Lining has given out almost $3 million.

Larry Lake

Larry W. Lake is a professor in the Hildebrand Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, where he holds the Shahid and Sharon Ullah Chair. He holds BSE and PhD degrees in Chemical Engineering from Arizona State University and Rice University, respectively.

He is the author or co-author of more than 150 technical papers and four textbooks, and is the editor of three bound volumes. Larry has served on the Board of Directors for the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE); won the 1996 Anthony F. Lucas Gold Medal from the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical and Petroleum Engineers (AIME) and SPE’s Degolyer Distinguished Service Medal in 2002; and has been a member of the US National Academy of Engineers since 1997. He won the SPE/DOE IOR Pioneer Award in 2000. He has been at UT Austin since 1978.

Ken Nelson

B.S., Petroleum Engineering, 1970
M.S., Petroleum Engineering, 1973

Ken Nelson was born in Austin, Texas, in 1948 and graduated from Austin High School in 1966. Due to exposure to the oil industry when in elementary school, he enrolled in the Petroleum Engineering department at The University of Texas at Austin and graduated with a Bachelor of Science with Highest Honors in 1970. Several logging courses and meetings with Dr. Sylvain Pirson instilled a great interest in geology during his undergraduate years. He began employment with Pan American Petroleum in Midwest, Wyoming, in 1971 as a production and development engineer and took an educational leave of absence to return to UT Austin to earn a Master of Science in Petroleum Engineering in 1973 while working for the Texas Petroleum Research Committee. His graduate supervisor was Dr. Ben Caudle.

He then returned to work in Midland, Texas, as a reservoir engineer for Texas International Petroleum (TIPCO) and was responsible for production in the Midland Basin and New Mexico, and transferred to New Orleans, Louisiana, in mid-1974 to remap and analyze TIPCO’s largest asset, Eloi Bay Half Moon Lake Field, in St. Bernard Parish. He was subsequently transferred to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, as a reservoir engineer and later promoted to exploitation manager for TIPCO in Houston, developing Gulf Coast Austin Chalk, Miocene, and Yequa reservoirs. In 1982, Ken joined a new company comprised of former TIPCO executives to head a Lower Cretaceous Carbonate development drilling program. In 1984, the company morphed into Patterson Petroleum and much later Patterson-UTI Energy in Houston, drilling wells all along the Upper Texas Gulf Coast and in West Texas. During the 1987 downturn, he moved to Austin but very soon continued to develop Austin Chalk, Buda, Georgetown, Edwards and Glen Rose prospects for Patterson Petroleum.

In 2007, he formed CML Exploration, LLC, located in Austin, after purchasing the operations of all Patterson wells. CML today operates and manages more than 330 wells in four distinct areas producing together about 4500 BOPD and 10 MMCFD with its primary offices in Austin, Snyder, Houston and Crystal City, Texas, and drills about 20 wells per year. CML employs nearly 100 people, including crews for six well service rigs.

Ken lives in Austin with his wife of 35 years, Carol, and three adult children and one grandchild who also reside in Austin.

Will Hickey (Rising Star Award)

B.S., Petroleum Engineering, 2009

Will Hickey has served as co-chief executive officer and a director of Permian Resources since September 2022. Prior to that, in 2015, he co-founded Colgate Energy with James Walter and served as Colgate’s president, co-CEO and a member of Colgate’s Board of Managers. Before the formation of Colgate, Will worked for the energy private equity firm EnCap Investments where he evaluated and monitored investments across the oil and gas space with a focus on the Permian Basin. Previously, Will worked for Pioneer Natural Resources where he rotated through numerous engineering positions including chief of staff to the chief operating officer.

Will received his Bachelor of Science in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin in 2009. He also holds a Master of Business Administration from Southern Methodist University.

Distinguished Alumni recipients are selected by a committee of UT PGE alumni, including past award honorees. This marks the 12th year UT PGE has given the Distinguished Alumni award, its highest recognition to graduates of its top-ranked undergraduate graduate petroleum engineering programs. Read more about the award and past recipients.