Interviewer(s): S. Wiltz and D. DiTucci. Lafayette, LA

Affiliation: University of Louisiana at Lafayette

Mr. Henry Harrison was born in Arkansas in 1928. In 1936, because of the Depression, his father was forced to abandon his work on his family's plantation and in favor of work in the oilfield. His father was a driller and tool pusher, and the family moved around a lot while he was growing up. He graduated from a high school in Florida in 1946 and went to work as a roughneck. After a year he decided he wanted to be an engineer and enrolled at the University of Florida. Over the next 10 years he continued his study, with a four year break wherein he served in the Air Force during the Korean Conflict; he graduated from Louisiana State University with a degree in engineering in 1957. He got an engineering position with the California Company in Venice and stayed there six years before taking a job as a district engineer with Signal Oil and Gas Company in Lafayette. In 1965 he became the district manager for Signal. He remained with the company when it was sold to Burma Oil and Gas (and was vice president of overseas operations for a time), but was fired in 1978 after it was sold to Aminoil. The following year he opened up a small rental tool company with his ex-boss; they sold the company in 1983 after it went bankrupt. After that he began consulting, something he continued until recently, and moved to east Texas. He describes the secrecy and competitiveness surrounding the lease bidding process and hiring employees with experience.