Interviewer: Laura Ek

Affiliation: University of Arizona

I met Steve Anderson while mapping the oil center back in September with Lillian Miller. Mr. Anderson seemed interested and open to talking and I said we’d set something up when I returned the following November.

Mr. Anderson is originally from Michigan. He graduated from the Colorado School of Mines in geophysical engineering in 1975. He got a job right away, which he attributes to the major boom in oil prices happening at that time. He began working as a seismic interpreter for UNICAL out of California. He left UNICAL in 1981 “during the boom” and went to work for Adaexco, a company centered in the oil center. He worked for them one year before he was laid off in 1982, due to the company going bankrupt. He went back to UNICAL in 1982, but they didn’t hire him. This led him to Quintana, a company owned by a wealthy family out of Houston. He worked for them for 9.5 years. In 1992 they closed the office and he was laid off. He began consulting work with Flories and Rucks. After 4 years he left Flories and Rucks and began his own personal consulting business in 1996 in the oil center, and has been working for himself ever since.

He discusses the changes he’s seen over time in the technology of the industry. He says he benefited from this major technological change as he had an up and coming degree for the industry, and the nature of the industry itself (described as “cyclical”). He tried to stay in Colorado, he said, but he met a “local girl” from around here and liked the people, the weather, and the food too much to leave. He speaks extensively about company movement and consolidation, and what Lafayette looked like before, during, and after the bust and what he saw as key indications. He mentions the effects he’s seen since the moratorium and Deepwater Horizon event. He talks about Lafayette today and how he thinks it’s a great place for raising a family, and where he hopes to spend the rest of his life.