John Taplett

Taplett, who is now an active reserve Navy intelligence officer, says the challenge was “selling and then helping execute on the first paid artificial intelligence (AI) software implementation” that he was involved in at OAG. “A few years ago, people asked the OAG team what it was that we were doing; then people shifted to asking us how we were doing it.

“Now, we are thrilled and challenged by the avalanche of E&P companies who reach out and ask us to help them deploy now. My business partner founded OAG five years ago. When he started the company, he realized that he had found the right place. With 2019 right over the horizon, the entire team at OAG is thrilled to be at the right place at the right exact time,” he says.

At the forefront: “Over the last three years, OAG has rapidly grown into the AI leader in the energy space. Helping build this company was unplanned, but was a real blessing.”

Goals: “My short-term goal is to make OAG Analytics the standard for upstream AI and advanced data analytics. My long-term goal is to help the U.S. realize several decades of energy independence and economic prosperity.”

Quotable: “We do real things with real tools. We build real companies that heat people’s homes, power their industries and energize the world at large.”

Advice for young professionals: “The importance of data-driven decisions and analytics cannot be overstated. The next generation is going to live in a world awash with data. I would advise them to learn to master the volume of data that they have access to and the analytics that can turn that data into strong business decisions. I cannot stress this enough—pay attention to the numbers.”