Although I moved to Oklahoma a little over two years ago, my family has deep roots here. My Great Grandfather and Grandfather owned and operated oil wells around Stroud, Oklahoma, sometime around the mid-1920’s. I heard stories from the “patch” since I was a little boy, and was fascinated by what I was hearing. This started a long path to the oil industry for me.
In 2009, when I joined Wood Group ESP, we decided to dig through my Grandfathers old photos to see what we could find for my office. What we found was an amazing photo story of my family’s time in the Stroud, Oklahoma oil patch. How things have changed…
I look at those photos and think, reflect on my own time on location, and am amazed. There are pictures of my Grandfather working on a rig with a tie, jacket, and hat. There were no real safety requirements, nothing to protect them but luck and an understanding of what they were working on. They were real innovators. They made things happen. They found what worked, adapted quickly to what worked, and abandoned those that did not work.
One particular photo I have had on my desk has always fascinated me. It is black and white, likely taken sometime in the 1920’s. It is not something most people would look at twice, but for me it is my family history. It’s of the tank battery for a couple of the old family wells. Even though the photos are black and white there is a surprising amount of detail to be found, if one looks closely enough.
The first thing I noticed was the “newness” of the tanks. Over the years as I looked at this photo trying to decide if they had been freshly painted, I realized what I was seeing. The tanks were actually leaking oil. Not in a stream, but a slow flow that gave the tanks a newly painted look. There is no secondary containment system, no way to know if there was a major leak unless you were there looking at it. Their best technology was the “Mark 1 Eyeball”.
In my current role, I am often surprised to find that we still do that. Yes, there are secondary containment systems, and we try our best to prevent mishaps… But, why not be pro-active versus reactive?
I joined Zedi to find real innovation to help make my customers, and yes, often my friends lives easier. My Grandfathers time in the oilfield was hard and dangerous. He did not know what was going on at those tanks unless he was there. In fact, in my photo, there are two men working on one of the tanks.
I am sure if I asked my Grandfather if he would have used remote tank monitoring, his reply would have been yes. He had better ways to spend his time than looking at tanks to see if they were full. My friends in the oilfield also have better ways to spend their time besides driving to location to see if a tank is full.
Our roots may be deep in what we do, but you are never so rooted you can not innovate.
