Editor-in-chief Leslie Haines asked that I select favorite photographs I have taken since the first issue of Investor in 1981. That represents thousands of photos over 300 issues. It proved a tough task because each photo carries a unique set of memories for me. Being in New York shortly after the World Trade Center tragedy, taking photos of the devastation, was the saddest and remains the most vivid of memories. Through the years the observation deck atop the World Trade Center had often served as a vantage point when I needed a dramatic photo of Manhattan. I would call those photos my "low-budget" aerial views, never imagining that that majestic view ever would be lost. I've also chosen photos of children in foreign countries where I traveled for energy assignments. Most children of the world greeted my camera with the warmth of big smiles and horseplay poses, but the eyes of some conveyed a sense of need or desperation. Taking photographs for this magazine has been a real bonus. The energy industry does have extremes of pictorial beauty. I found it in the human buzz of Wall Street and in the total silence of the desert, watching the setting sun silhouette a lone drilling rig on an endless horizon. It has always been a pleasure to travel the energy trail photographing a tough people, in a tough business, in tough places, who keep those bits turning to the right.

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