Thomas Carl Belsha Jr. – Integration Manager at LINN Energy
|
EDUCATION:
|
My favorite academic related college memories were studying with friends and working on difficult projects together. I decided to pursue Petroleum Engineering in 1998 and received a SPE-GCS scholarship. That scholarship gave me the opportunity to work as a "marine roustabout" for Diamond Offshore on a drilling platform ~ 100 miles offshore in the Gulf the summer between high school and college. This was a fantastic experience and increased my desire to pursue Petroleum Engineering. Getting as much practical hands-on field experience prior to and during college is one of the best ways to enhance your career. The Petroleum Department at Texas A&M was very focused on us finding internships and because of my SPE scholarship internship experience I was able to get a field internship with Burlington Resources. I worked as a lease operator in the Louisiana swamps and was invited back as a Production Engineer. I started “grave to cradle”, learning plug and abandonment operations first and then moving to workovers, completions, and economic analysis. My final summer, I worked as a reservoir / geology intern in Farmington, NM for Burlington in the San Juan Basin. That summer I learned how to make structural and strati-graphic cross-sections, perform log analysis and how to combine that into drilling recommendations. I was offered a full time position in for Burlington and spent 4 years working as a Production / Completion Engineer, mainly working in the swamps of our field in south Louisiana. I shortly transferred into Business Development and after Burlington was acquired by ConocoPhillips, I spent a year in the field as a drilling engineer / company man in the ETX Deep Bossier play and moved to Reservoir Engineering. In 2007, I took a position as a BD Engineer with LINN Energy and spent the next 3 years working deal evaluations, corporate planning / budgeting and portfolio analysis. I then transferred to operations and spent the next 3 years as a Production Manager over field operations. In 2014, I started an Integration / Data Management team to improve our integrations and data issues resulting from over 60 acquisitions. I lead a multi-disciplined team comprised of operations, accounting and IT personnel to build a Master Data Management solution and improve the integration process. The SPE scholarship I received helped me decide to pursue petroleum engineering and the summer internship after high school gave me a great advantage early in my career. My advice to students is to make a plan and strive toward that goal, even if the plan changes later on, you will learn and grow much more by working towards a path you chose. Also, be a sponge and get significant field experience early in your career.