Special Edition August 2021
How an Oilman’s Daughter Helped Establish the United States’ First Offshore Wind Farm
“The silence was profound,” Barbara MacMullan recalls of the day Block Island switched from diesel generators to the first commercial offshore wind farm in the United States. “We were all gathered in the control room watching as, one by one, the generators were turned off and we switched over to...
A Day in the Life of… a Dynamic Positioning Operator
2:45 pm – It’s now mid-day in the Gulf of Mexico on an ultra-deepwater drillship. I’m on Day 14 of a 28-day hitch and am working the 6:00 pm to 6:00 am schedule. The alarm begins its lazy tune and I begrudgingly awake. (I hear loud noises and announcements all...
Starlee Sykes: Riding the Waves of Success
When bp CEO Bernard Looney streamlined the corporate leadership structure in May 2020, it enabled Starlee Sykes, bp’s president of the Gulf of Mexico and Canada, to move up a place, creating only two degrees of separation between her and the top job, a position that has only been reached...
Geophysicist Takes the Plunge into Second Career
Chris Summers, owner Terrapin Wetsuits: I graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Geophysics from Texas A&M University (TAMU) in 1977. I first went to work for Shell’s U.S. company (before it was bought out by Royal Dutch Shell), in its international division, operated under the name Pecten. I worked...