Interviewer(s): S. Wiltz; David DiTucci. Lafayette, LA

Affiliation: University of Louisiana at Lafayette

Born in 1929 in Weslaco, Texas, Mr. Kenneth Kaigler went into the military service after he graduated high school in 1946. He then went to Texas A&M University, where he graduated with a degree in petroleum and natural gas engineering in 1952. During the last two years of college, he roughnecked for Humble Oil and Refining. Upon graduating he went to work in Venezuela as a drilling engineer for Venezuelan Atlantic Refining Company (Varco). He moved to Lafayette in 1957 to work for British American Oil Producing Company, where he worked as a drilling and production engineer until 1964. Over the next five years he was a offshore drilling engineer for ODECO in New Orleans. Not liking living in New Orleans, he came back to Lafayette to work for Signal Oil and Gas Company. In 1973, he became a manager for C and K Petroleum. In 1978 he took a job with Tenneco Oil and worked off Rhode Island and in Trinidad. After that he was transferred to Marlin Drilling Company where he worked as a rig manager in Brazil. In 1987 he formed his own consulting business that deals with oilfield-related insurance claims and litigation. During the interview he discusses the explosion of offshore drilling during the mid 1960s due to increased demand for oil and gas, as well as technological advances that made deeper water drilling possible.