I am an admirer of 62-year old Mike Melvill, a corporate test pilot. He is due to be launched later this week (mid-June) into space - 62.5 miles (100 km) above the earth - in a stub-winged, privately funded space craft. That's a privately funded, US $20 million space craft, as opposed to the government funded, multi-billion dollar space shuttles. If he succeeds, Melvill will be the first commercial astronaut. He has taken the craft aloft before, to a height of 40 miles (64 km), and managed the tricky re-entry. Still, he is taking a big chance, if you ask me.

That is something we don't see too often anymore, especially in our industry. We are the worse off for it. The quarterly profit mentality has, for the most part, killed risk taking.

Now, I am not talking about research and development and new product risk taking, although a large toll has been taken there also. What I am talking about is personal and project risk taking. With today's emphasis on doing nothing that might endanger quarterly performance, there is simply no place for risk taking.

This topic often comes up in a seminar series that we put on with Dapish Oil & Gas Strategy Consultants. The seminars are designed to explain the intricacies of successful technology launches. The discussions often turn to roadblocks to successful technology launches, including risk aversion. It is only natural I suppose. Today's engineer or technician is, all too often, punished for too much innovation, especially when it increases costs or impacts project success. It is a career limiting - or ending - move. That can make even the stouthearted nervous, and the rest of us down right conservative. If I were still working in the field, I am pretty sure I would not risk my next $20 million well on an untested procedure or technology, no matter how innovative. Nor, probably, would my boss or anyone else in the drilling group who needed continued employment. Yet, 20 years or more ago, the drilling group that I worked with did that, and more than once. And, we were not the only ones. But, the quarter-to-quarter mentality did not reign then.

That's a shame, because some of the risks we took - like running prototype, untested motors in important and expensive wells - paid off in the development of valuable technology. Other times, a belief that something could be accomplished pushed risk taking. I remember one well with stuck pipe. We had backed off, latched back on with fishing jars and pounded away at the fish. It didn't budge. After some 24 hours of fishing, I got the word from headquarters to back off the fish, pull out of the hole and prepare to sidetrack. For some reason - or actually, because I thought we could get that fish - I kept on fishing. In another three hours the pipe started moving and in several more we had the string, fish and all, on deck.

Did I violate my orders? Yes. Did I save the company money, and the hole, by taking a risk? You bet. Of course, I got my backside chewed on for it, but only half-heartedly. Maybe you would have run me off for it. Anyhow, I took a little risk - it was only time, after all - and produced positive results.

I probably would not even consider taking that slight risk in today's economic climate. After all, that could be the few extra hours that caused us to miss analyst's expectations. And, taking the risk to try a new tool or technique? Probably out of the question.

What a pity.

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