Back Home....
It's been a busy week, mainly spent moving my office and buying new accouterments to go therein.
For the last 6 years I've been in association with EGL Resources, a conglomerate of petroleum geolgists, engineers, and landmen [hence the EGL] and it's been a great association. I couldn't have asked for a better group to bunk with.....and teach me a few things about the oil and gas business. We drilled some wells, bought some wells, bought minerals and had our share of successes and failures, but most importantly it's been singificant in the close relationships we all formed. I'm grateful for their help and support.
But it's time to move on with a new venture I've been working on for almost two years. And time to move back to the oldest office building in town, the Petroleum Building. Built in 1928, it's among the prime reasons that Midland developed into a major player in the oil business, for when it was completed it was the only office space in West Texas near the huge newly discovered oil fields of the Permian Basin. The major oil companies located their staffs in the building to manage their new discoveries. And so with the headquarters personal here, Midland grew when so many other oil field boom towns had their day and then faded. It's a historic building and, I think, a beautiful one compared to the modern glass boxes. Built in a sandstone desert style art deco, it has retained it's charm complete with the painted mural in the lobby.
This marks my third tour in the building. The first came in 1979 when I lived in Dallas but was hired as a real estate consultant by the then owners who were going to construct a 45 story modern office building next to the Petroleum Building. I was flown out on their plane every week to work on the new structure and had an office on the ground floor. But the big oil boom of the late 70's and early 80's was soon followed by the big oil bust of the mid 80's so the new building was never built. My second expeience in the building came almost 20 years later when I started with EGL Resources which had just formed, The building was owned by one of our partners.
And so now I'm back for the third stay this time on the SW corner of the third floor floor. A great space overlooking the park at Centennial Plaza and with tree tops right outside my windows. We were fortunate to get this office as it adjoins my partner Del Sloan and and is adjacent to the two engineers who will also be involved in our new venture, Embar Power LLC. Julie has been helping with the decorating and we never knew it would be so hard to find the appropriate furniture. But we're particular. We finally found a rather old Mission Style desk at an antique store that suits my taste to the "T". The file cabinets were another matter. I had thought that with some diligent searching we could locate the old style wooden ones to go with the rest of the motif. But alas none were to be found, so I had to settle for stock wooden models from Office Depot.
But it's starting to look rather good and I'm excited to be embarking on this new phase of my career. Particularly excited since today I got word from the representative of the two large corporations that are involved in our new venture that they are preparing a letter of intent to signify their handshake agreement on our deal. Hard to believe that after two years of research, stops and starts and toil that our dreams could actually be coming true. We're not ready to announce the project yet, but it involves gas, electricity and a new use for an under utilized fuel. Stay tuned.
It's been a busy week, mainly spent moving my office and buying new accouterments to go therein.
For the last 6 years I've been in association with EGL Resources, a conglomerate of petroleum geolgists, engineers, and landmen [hence the EGL] and it's been a great association. I couldn't have asked for a better group to bunk with.....and teach me a few things about the oil and gas business. We drilled some wells, bought some wells, bought minerals and had our share of successes and failures, but most importantly it's been singificant in the close relationships we all formed. I'm grateful for their help and support.
But it's time to move on with a new venture I've been working on for almost two years. And time to move back to the oldest office building in town, the Petroleum Building. Built in 1928, it's among the prime reasons that Midland developed into a major player in the oil business, for when it was completed it was the only office space in West Texas near the huge newly discovered oil fields of the Permian Basin. The major oil companies located their staffs in the building to manage their new discoveries. And so with the headquarters personal here, Midland grew when so many other oil field boom towns had their day and then faded. It's a historic building and, I think, a beautiful one compared to the modern glass boxes. Built in a sandstone desert style art deco, it has retained it's charm complete with the painted mural in the lobby.
This marks my third tour in the building. The first came in 1979 when I lived in Dallas but was hired as a real estate consultant by the then owners who were going to construct a 45 story modern office building next to the Petroleum Building. I was flown out on their plane every week to work on the new structure and had an office on the ground floor. But the big oil boom of the late 70's and early 80's was soon followed by the big oil bust of the mid 80's so the new building was never built. My second expeience in the building came almost 20 years later when I started with EGL Resources which had just formed, The building was owned by one of our partners.
And so now I'm back for the third stay this time on the SW corner of the third floor floor. A great space overlooking the park at Centennial Plaza and with tree tops right outside my windows. We were fortunate to get this office as it adjoins my partner Del Sloan and and is adjacent to the two engineers who will also be involved in our new venture, Embar Power LLC. Julie has been helping with the decorating and we never knew it would be so hard to find the appropriate furniture. But we're particular. We finally found a rather old Mission Style desk at an antique store that suits my taste to the "T". The file cabinets were another matter. I had thought that with some diligent searching we could locate the old style wooden ones to go with the rest of the motif. But alas none were to be found, so I had to settle for stock wooden models from Office Depot.
But it's starting to look rather good and I'm excited to be embarking on this new phase of my career. Particularly excited since today I got word from the representative of the two large corporations that are involved in our new venture that they are preparing a letter of intent to signify their handshake agreement on our deal. Hard to believe that after two years of research, stops and starts and toil that our dreams could actually be coming true. We're not ready to announce the project yet, but it involves gas, electricity and a new use for an under utilized fuel. Stay tuned.
