UT PGE Recognizes 2019 Distinguished Alumni Honorees

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. Distinguished Alumni recipients are selected by a committee of UT PGE alumni, including past award honorees.

Meet the 2019 Distinguished Alumni Honorees:

James “Jim” M. Barnum

On January 21, 1957, James “Jim” Barnum was born in Atlanta. Barnum lived in the small town of Smyrna, Ga., until he was 10 years old, then relocated to Seabrook, Texas, near Houston. He graduated from Clear Lake High School in 1975 and was accepted into the petroleum engineering program at The University of Texas at Austin in the fall of 1975.

Barnum graduated from UT PGE with the highest honors in December 1978. In January of 1979, he married his wife Beth (Anderson) Barnum, with whom he has shared the last 40-plus years of a wonderful life. He started his career with Texaco in Humble, Texas. Barnum was promoted to his first supervisory role as a lead or area engineer in Pampa, Texas, in 1981. He also had opportunities to return to the UT campus as a recruiter for Texaco. 

Barnum continued to advance in engineering management levels and later in operations management and asset development. When Chevron purchased Texaco, Barnum came across as the area manager for CO2 floods in the lower 48 states in the U.S. In 2004, Barnum was named general manager of operations in Midland, Texas, for Chevron’s Mid-Continent Business Unit. In addition, Barnum joined the UT PGE External Advisory Committee, where he served for three years and was the committee chairman for the last year. 

Barnum was involved in Chevron’s recruiting effort at UT PGE and co-led Chevron to be the No. 1 recruiter at UT PGE for numerous years. Barnum was on the committee that established the UT PGE Distinguished Alumni Program. He led the effort to set up a scholarship from contributions of UT PGE alumni at Chevron, and he and his wife also set up a personal UT PGE scholarship. Barnum continued to work for Chevron in the Chevron Pipeline Group and finally retired from the job of general manager for operations of the pipeline in February of 2017. 

He and his wife have two sons and seven grandchildren. Their eldest son, Casey Barnum, has a Master of Accountancy from the University of Houston and lives in Houston with his wife and three children. The youngest son, Bradley Barnum, has a Bachelor of Science in petroleum engineering from UT PGE and is living in Sumatra, Indonesia, with his wife and their four children.

John H. Campbell III

B.S., Petroleum Engineering, 2009

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 at Tulane University to study mechanical engineering. After Hurricane Katrina, he transferred to The University of Texas at Austin 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 with whom he had worked 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.

James Dupree

B.S., Natural Sciences
M.S., Petroleum Engineering

James Dupree is currently chief operating officer of subsurface, projects and exploration, and a member of BP’s upstream executive team. Dupree’s portfolio includes three upstream functions: global projects, reservoir development and exploration.

Dupree has worked for BP since 1985 and has held many leadership positions, including Gulf of Mexico regional president, Russia & Kazakhstan group vice president, BP Angola president, BP Offshore Inc. USA president, and BP’s Canadian Oil Unit president. Dupree has also worked within BP’s Russian joint venture, TNK-BP, as an executive vice president, and later served on its board.

In his early years with BP, Dupree held various engineering posts at the company’s divisions in Alaska and California. In 1992, he was named chief engineer of major projects in Colombia. In 1998, he worked in BP’s headquarters and was involved in the management and planning of corporate business in the North Sea, Alaska and Australia.

Dupree holds a bachelor’s degree in natural sciences and a master’s degree in petroleum engineering from The University of Texas at Austin. Dupree is also a Sloan Fellow of the Stanford Graduate School of Business and holds a Master of Business Administration from Stanford University.

Larry Folmar

B.S., Petroleum Engineering, 1947

Laurie W. “Larry” Folmar, B.S. in petroleum engineering (1947), served as director and senior vice president for producing operations in the Eastern Hemisphere at Texaco.

Raised in Alabama and the Rio Grande Valley, Folmar joined the Army Air Corps during World War II. He achieved the rank of Captain, flying 62 combat missions in the South Pacific. Upon his return home, he enrolled in The University of Texas at Austin. Graduating in 1947, his memberships at UT Austin included Tau Beta Pi, Sigma Gamma Epsilon, and the Society of Petroleum Engineers.

His professional career began shortly after graduation when he joined Texaco as an engineering trainee in Midland, Texas. After various assignments in Midland and Ft Worth, in 1958, he was appointed division petroleum engineer in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Three years later, he was transferred to New York City as a staff petroleum engineer. Folmar revisited Tulsa as assistant division manager from 1963 to 1965, and then returned once again to New York as general manager, producing for the Eastern hemisphere.

In that capacity, Folmar worked with various Middle Eastern operators, navigating the increasingly complex global oil market as organizations like OPEC rose to prominence. Promotions leading to senior vice president and Texaco’s board of directors followed soon thereafter, and by 1971, he held responsibility for the company’s production operations in the entire Eastern hemisphere as chief negotiator. Folmar also held director positions in the National Foreign Trade Council, American Overseas Petroleum Company, Arabian American Oil Company, and the Bahrain Petroleum Company.

Folmar retired in 1978 and resided in Lakeway, Texas. Proud of his roots as a Longhorn, he maintained his connections to The University of Texas through his career and retirement years through scholarships, volunteer work, and speaking engagements.

Michael J. Minarovic

B.S., Petroleum Engineering, 1987

Michael J. Minarovic is the CEO and co-founder of Arena Energy, an employee-owned exploration and production company. Since its start-up in 1999, the company has invested nearly $4 billion of capital in the federal waters of the Gulf of Mexico and has been the most active driller in this basin for the past five years.

Minarovic is also the co-founder of White Fleet Drilling, a drilling contractor that owns and operates three large jack-up drilling rigs operating in the Gulf of Mexico and is the founder of Rosefield Pipeline, a midstream company that owns and operates over 200 miles of oil and gas pipelines in the Gulf of Mexico.

Previously, Minarovic served as a petroleum engineer with Newfield Exploration from 1993 to 1999 and with Conoco, Inc. from 1988 to 1993. Minarovic currently serves as a director of the publicly-traded QEP Resources, is an executive director of the United States Oil and Gas Association, is a member of the John Cooper School Board of Trustees, and is an active member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers.

He graduated from The University of Texas at Austin in 1987 with a B.S. in petroleum engineering.

Charles John “Chip” Rimer

Charles John “Chip” Rimer began his career in 1983 with ARCO Oil & Gas Company in Denver as a drilling and completion engineer. In 1986, he moved to Midland, Texas, working in the production and drilling departments.

In 1990, he transferred to Lafayette, La., as a senior operations engineer. His focus was on the Gulf of Mexico shelf and high-pressure onshore areas. Rimer transferred to Houston in 1993 and worked for Vastar Resources with the primary focus on Gulf of Mexico deep-water operations.

In 2001, Rimer worked for Aspect Resources and, through a JV venture, started working for Noble Energy as U.S. onshore drilling manager in 2002. He was promoted to VP of operations services and managed Noble’s worldwide drilling, facilities projects and supply chain until the end of 2011. In January of 2012, he managed Noble’s International West Africa, Non-Operated and New Ventures Divisions. In April of 2013, he was promoted to senior VP global EHSR & operations services.

In 2014, he moved to Denver with the assignment of senior VP of US onshore that included the DJ Basin, Marcellus, Eagle Ford and Permian areas. He also led efforts for Noble in 2016 and 2018 to defeat anti-O&G ballot measures. In November 2018, Rimer started working for Whiting Petroleum Corporation as the chief operating officer. He has served on the following boards of directors: COGA, CRED, Protect Colorado, Colorado Concern, Denver Metro Chamber, WEA, NBLX, and UT PGE.