With an agricultural engineering degree from Oklahoma State University and graduate work in industrial engineering, Richard Spears has worked for 31 years in the upstream oil and gas industry, starting as a field engineer for Halliburton. Richard is one of the managing directors of Spears & Associates, an oilfield market research firm founded in 1965. The firm has 400 clients worldwide, including all major oil companies, many national oil companies, all major service companies and over one hundred private and institutional investors. Richard has been with the firm since 1985 and leads the firm’s mergers and acquisitions support practice.

Richard is a 25 year member of SPE and was a Society of Petroleum Engineers Distinguished Lecturer 2005‐2006 with the topic, “Investing in Oilfield Equipment and Service Technologies.” Richard is on the board of directors and is an owner of Universal Pegasus International, which is a global pipeline and offshore engineering company, Varel International, a global drill bit manufacturer, Federal, a supplier of high technology couplings for pipelines and subsea applications, and Allied Wireline, a new openhole logging service company working on land in the US. Richard is also president of Tulsa 26 Scouts, Inc., a 501(c)3 non‐profit corporation providing outdoor adventures for kids in Oklahoma.

Richard and his wife Carol have one son at the University of Tulsa, one son at the University of Oklahoma, and a daughter in high school in Tulsa.