difficulty. When discussion was over, Bernie came to the podium and said,
“Thank you George. By now you know we have a surprise visitor, Fred Busch, Sinclair’s Chief Geologist. Fred, would you care to say a few words?”
The older gentleman who arrived in the middle of my lecture was Fred Busch. He made the usual remarks about the importance of the new training programs at Sinclair and even said that “. . given what I heard so far from George Klein, this program is off to a strong start.”
Busch stayed the rest of the afternoon and invited me for a drink so we could get better acquainted along with some of the other participants. Bernie took me aside and told me that normally, he would have interrupted so Busch could give a pep talk but Busch insisted on hearing what I had to say first. In the corporate world, breaks like this seldom come in a lifetime, let alone during the first month on the job.
However, I observed a sobering side-show. While having a drink with Busch, Rolfe and some of the others, I noticed three attractively dressed women in their late twenties at the bar. They were having drinks with different patrons and now and then, snuck off to the patron’s motel room. One didn’t have to think hard about what was going on. Underneath America’s bible-belt family town, there was, indeed, a dark side.
I also joined the Tulsa Geological Society and attended most dinner and luncheon meetings. Consequently, I met a lot of well-known geologists in Tulsa and reconnected with Gerry Friedman (BSc Imperial College, University of London, PhD, Columbia; sedimentary petrology; Univ. of Cincinnati, Uranium Consultant, Pan Am Research, RPI, CUNY, Northeast Science Foundation) and Harry Werner (PhD, Syracuse, petroleum geology; Pan Am Research, University of Pittsburgh) at Pan Am Research. They apologized for not arranging a plant trip and explained that when A. F. Frederickson was fired, all hiring stopped. Frederickson found a new job as head of the department of geology at the University of Pittsburgh. I developed a lifelong friendship with Gerry Friedman and his family.
I attended GSA in late October and presented a paper on Triassic sandstone petrology challenging the paradigms of tectonic associations and sandstone petrography. The paper was scheduled in a general session and I was the second speaker. The speaker before me was Larry Sloss who presented a paper on “Cratonic Sequences.” The room was packed. When I reached the podium to make my presentation, the room was half full. Instantaneously, I resolved to give the best talk I was capable of presenting and make sure I never spoke to a half-full room again. Later, I met Sloss in the halls who apologized for leaving and said he heard I gave a great paper.
Bernie and I met at the Denver Airport and flew to Casper, WY via Cheyenne, WY, the first stop and then Laramie, WY. We flew over the “gangplank” as the ground rose to meet us. We arrived in Casper and were met by Chuck Tenney. It was cold, snow was falling and we went to the Sinclair office where Bernie met everyone and introduced me.
After meeting in Chuck’s office reviewing maps, cross-sections and Chuck’s perspectives of the project goals, we drove to Beulah, WY to stay at “Ranch A” a dude ranch. We arrived on October 31 for dinner. The place had many hunters from Minnesota, Nevada, and elsewhere. Some hunters also brought along their girlfriends or mistresses (not sure which). Bernie commented over drinks that “they’ll shoot poorly with their rifles during the day, and if they don’t drink too much, they might do better with their pop guns in bed.” Hunting season started next morning.
After breakfast, we drove into a box canyon as the sun rose. It snowed overnight and it was beautiful. I suggested we stop and examine an outcrop on the canyon wall. On opening our car doors, shot guns fired away and the noise echoed around the box canyon. Bernie said, “Sorry George, let’s get out of here. This is worse than the Battle of the Bulge.”
We spent two days in the field examining outcrops. We heard gunfire all day. At night, the hunters were getting tanked up at Ranch A but none bagged a deer.
On Sunday, we drove back to Casper. During the entire trip, Bernie and Chuck talked about other company people, their strengths, their foibles, their weaknesses, their intelligence, their ethics, and so on. I listened. Finally, Bernie said to me, “George, you must think we do nothing but gossip about everyone in the company.” After a non-committal response, Bernie said, “Look kid, you’re still wet behind the ears and new on the job. It’s a cold cruel world out there. And another thing, don’t believe this crap about company loyalty. They can fire you at will, and if you’re lucky, it might be with two week’s notice.”
I flew back to Denver, rented a car and drove to Boulder. I needed to read some theses at the University of Colorado that were relevant to my project. I also had dinner with Don Eicher and his wife. He had been at Colorado for two years teaching paleontology.
I flew back to Tulsa and returned to work.
By this time, I became better acquainted with Glenn Visher. Glenn was articulate and loved putting people down and arguing with them. I noticed that others in the lab were not that appreciative of his style. I didn’t mind the arguments, but did mind some of his acerbic comments. While at Shell, he completed their training program and was trying to build research on one aspect, namely the vertical sequence concept of changes in grain size, sedimentary structures, well log shape and trend to characterize depositional environments. I reviewed his work and felt he was on to something, but it was a hard sell to the company. Moreover, there was concern that he used Shell proprietary data and this could lead to difficulties.
As I went over Glenn’s work, I realized I needed to review the literature of the present day Gulf Coastal Plain of the Gulf of Mexico. It was the incubator of predictive models of sedimentology of the 1960’s.
Around Thanksgiving, I reassessed my situation. I missed the academic environment and the freedom to pursue research of one’s own choice. I found Tulsa a disappointing place to live particularly because I was single and dating opportunities were few. Most of my age group or younger were married with families. All eligible women I met were divorced with at least two young children requiring a major adjustment. Tulsa was a great place to live if one had a wife and three or more children. It was also heavily church oriented, and although I joined the local Unitarian church with a young charismatic minister, single ladies were few. There weren’t many other attractions.
I met two great couples at the Unitarian church, Ken and Marge Ackley and Hugh and Grace Hay-Roe. Ken was regional exploration manager for Humble and grew up in west Texas, graduating from the University of Texas. Early in his career, Ken was assigned to the district office in Mattoon, IL. He met Marge there at church. She was teaching school in Mattoon after graduating from the University of Illinois. His knick-name for me was ‘Rocknocker.’ Ken explained that we were fellow rocknockers pounding on rocks to find oil and natural gas. Meeting the Ackley’s was one of the bright spots during my entire stay in Tulsa.
Hugh Hay-Roe (BSc, Univ. of Alberta; MS, PhD, Univ. of Texas @ Austin; Jersey Production Research, International Petroleum – Peru; Belco; private consultant; BPZ Energy) became a life-long friend. A Canadian, we developed a good friendship. After I left Tulsa, we saw less of each other but reconnected when I moved to Houston and I completed some spec work for BPZ Energy, and later when BPZ Energy asked me to help them with a book on Peruvian basins. Hugh is best known for writing columns and a book on proper geological writing.
Sinclair Research, in many respects, was a great training ground, but I kept looking for teaching positions. I applied for a two-year temporary position at the University of Wisconsin and had a memorable breakfast interview at the Denver GSA meeting with three people, including Louis M. Cline who was now chairman. They hired someone even younger and in their view, cheaper. They were unconvinced I’d take a 30% pay cut if the job was offered.
At Christmas, I arranged to take time off and make up the time working Saturdays for six weeks. During that
