For the past two years, Harry J. Briscoe has not been fly fishing in his favorite Patagonia. Instead, he's been helping six fellow ex-employees of Tenneco Oil (E&P and P&M) and Tennessee Gas Cos. write a book that arrives in November. “Built From Scratch” tells the history of that fabled company and gives some reasons why so many of its alums became top executives throughout the industry in the years since.

Tenneco Oil was sold 25 years ago, yet at press time some 700 alums from all over the US were to gather in Houston for a reunion, a testament to their love of that company. They include Joe Foster, who founded Newfield Exploration Co. (see Legends, Oil and Gas Investor, June 2008); Harold Korell, who helmed Southwestern Energy Co.; Rod Eichler, who is co-chief operating officer of Apache Corp.; and many more. “The Tenneco mafia, we call it. It's a phenomenal story and we wanted to write about why that happened.”

Briscoe graduated from the Colorado School of Mines with a master's in geology in 1972 and soon thereafter, joined Tenneco as a junior geologist, exploration, in Bakersfield, California. Until 1988 when Tenneco was sold off in pieces, he rose steadily through the ranks, working offshore and onshore. In 1982, he was promoted to division general manager, Southwestern Division (Permian Basin) in San Antonio. Four years later he became vice president of exploration, a position he held until Tenneco was dismantled in 1988. He worked under Foster.

Following the sale, he and three other Tenneco alums joined with financial entrepreneur Tom Tatham to form DeepTech International, Tatham Offshore and Leviathan Gas Pipeline Cos., all focused on the Gulf of Mexico, an area he knew well. He became president and chief operating officer of Tatham, then, executive vice president and director of DeepTech.

In 1995, he and a partner formed Dover Energy and WB Offshore as an independent prospect-generating company for the shallow-water Gulf. They also drilled an exciting deepwater wildcat off Belize—but that's another story, he says.

Since 2003 he has pursued investments and been a consultant. But one of his greatest loves is fly fishing, so he has been principal owner of Hexagraph Fishing Rods Inc. since 1993.

Along the way, Briscoe served for 27 years in nonprofit board work, including the board of directors for Junior Achievement in San Antonio and Houston. Retired from active board work, he still teaches classes.

Investor Given your time in Bakersfield, what do you think about the Monterey shale?

Briscoe Although there may not be a template for producing it yet, just overlay the amazing technology and ingenuity we have today and our industry will again come up with new things that were formerly impossible. It's one of the oiliest provinces in the country, and it's capable of generating a lot of oil and gas. Somebody's going to figure it out.

Investor What do you make of these resource plays?

Briscoe The question now is, do these things hold up? What is the decline curve? But it's irrefutable that in the past five to seven years, we've seen a complete revolution. But the truth is, we've had revolution after revolution in this industry. It just takes an accidental discovery or two and somebody seizing on something instead of passing it by. The leading edge will always be there.

Investor You used to teach the young geologists in a prospecting class at Tenneco.

Briscoe One of my lessons was, don't ignore anything. So many good things have come about because of some little anomaly, some little clue, that somebody wouldn't let go of…and later it became a bigger reality. The oil industry IS a renewable resource.

Investor How so?

Briscoe You can't say that the industry hasn't renewed itself many times over. You know, production in deep water was supposed to be impossible—people thought there were no productive sands beyond 600 feet of water depth. They thought a platform had to be tethered to the sea floor. But then, somebody said, “Wait a minute. That's not right.” It's the mental side of things, the creativity side that counts. Imagination is more important than having just the facts.

In my San Antonio days, we used to drill right through the Wolfcamp. We'd drill through it as fast as we could on our way to other objectives. Economics rule, but the rocks are there, and so are the 'light bulb' moments.

Investor What was the key at Tenneco?

Briscoe We've asked ourselves that many times. It was the best practices we had, and multidisciplinary teams in a time when most companies didn't do that. Joe Foster's belief was that you turn your young people loose and let them try their ideas. We made more money that way than we lost through mistakes, and we learned so much. We gave them budgets to invest and results that were expected and they had personal accountability. And, we taught them that what they were doing was a business to create a profit, not just geology or geophysics or engineering.

Investor What do you teach at Junior Achievement?

Briscoe Learn how to present yourself. If you're not selling a product, you're selling an idea and that it's worth chasing. You're really selling yourself.

For archives of interviews with industry legends, see OilandGasInvestor.com.

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