Michael Rozenfeld

“People told us we were crazy to quit our stable jobs and too young to be out on our own,” Rozenfeld recalls. “There were few companies started by people in our peer group at that time.

Our thought was that we were as much shale experts as anyone else, so there was no reason why we couldn’t be successful.”

Rozenfeld was right.

Today, he counts co-founding South Texas Reservoir Alliance LLC to be among his greatest achievements.

The experience Rozenfeld gained at the company was instrumental in helping him embark on his next adventure: co-founding Boomtown Oil and Gas Co. LLC.

The privately owned, Houston-based E&P focuses on low-cost, economic and technically sound operations in major basins across the Lower 48.

Follow the leader: Rozenfeld serves as Boomtown’s geoscience lead. “Part of being a leader is being your own best follower. I have always believed that a leader should be able and willing to do whatever they ask anyone else to do for them.”

Career path: After college graduation, Rozenfeld was recruited by Shell Exploration and Production Co. to complete a petrophysical evaluation on the tight gas Slick Ranch Field and Vicksburg Formation in the lower Rio Grande Valley in South Texas. Within a year, he was serving as the project’s lead petrophysicist.

Advice for young professionals: “Take every opportunity to learn as much as you can about every discipline including land, geology, engineering and midstream. The better-rounded you are, the better you will become in your core competency.”

Quotable: “Betting on you is never the wrong decision. Set realistic goals for yourself over a one-, two- and five-year time frame. Everything you plan for will inevitably take much longer than you think, so the earlier you start, the better off you will be.”