Interviewer: Jason Theriot

Affiliation: University of Houston

Robert Patterson grew up just south of Jacksonville, FL, and he remained in his home state to attend the University of Florida. There he earned a terminal Doctoral degree in engineering science and mechanics. Patterson abandoned his initial aim of becoming a professor after a chance encounter with a Shell employee, and he soon joined up. Some of his early work included designing catenary pipeline arrangements for steel risers, to hang off of a floating structure. That work took Patterson to the deepwater Gulf of Mexico, where he worked on the Auger tension-leg platform designing its novel production riser and tensioning systems. Patterson later worked on the Mars TLP as well. In the late 1990s, Patterson was instrumental in the re-formation within Shell of a Deepwater Projects division.