Interviewer(s): T. McGuire. Algiers, LA

Affiliation: University of Arizona

I first met Mr. Jan Pedersen at the Chevron retirees' lunch I attended on a previous trip to Gretna, where I was the guest of Bill DeCells. Mr. Pedersen was busy during that trip, but he agreed to talk with me on subsequent visits. The morning after the lunch, he dropped off a couple of articles at my motel, one of which was the text of the speech he gave to the 50th anniversary meeting of the International Oil Scouts Association, held in Houston in 1973. The bio gives some of his background. The day of the interview was his 80th birthday, and he was talking overseas to relatives when he let me into his condo, right off the levee at Algiers Point, a fairly exclusive place with a magnificent view of the Mississippi. He moved there from his home and 1-acre lot across the Lake about 8 years ago after his wife died. His friend, Harvey Dupuy, with whom he had worked in the Barataria area, was already living there.

Jan was born in New Orleans, of Norwegian parents. He earned a bachelor of arts degree from LSU in petroleum engineering in 1944. He spent 20 years with Standard Oil of California [a.k.a Cal Company, Chevron] where he retired as Staff Drilling Engineer on the Production V-P's staff. Then he joined Offshore Company. He was active with the American Petroleum Institute and the International Association of Drilling Contractors. While with Offshore, he and a partner started a joint venture to build a drillship, but the shipyard was behind and their contract broken. With that failure, he joined ODECO, from which he retired (again) in 1987.