Interviewer: Tyler Priest and Jason Theriot

Affiliation: University of Houston

Gordon Sterling was raised in Ontario, Canada, and quickly developed an interest in engineering. He earned a master’s degree in structural engineering at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania in 1965, and soon ended up with Shell Oil in Houston. Two years later, working out of New Orleans for Shell’s central engineering group, Sterling began working on major design projects for platforms in the shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico. From there, Sterling gained experience at the Bellaire Research Center, and then worked on designing the early deepwater fixed platforms, including Shell’s Cognac and Bullwinkle developments. Gordon was then named manager of “Project X,” which turned out to be the Mars tension-leg platform development. Gordon retired from Shell in April 2000.