The LoCo Experience

EXPERIENCE 167 | The Ins and Outs and Valuations of the Oil and Natural Gas Industry with Todd Brooker, President of Cawley, Gillespie & Associates, Inc. in Austin, Texas

• Alma Ferrer

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I got acquainted with Todd Brooker through LinkedIn, where we follow some of the same voices, and learned last fall that he spends a lot of time in Fort Collins - where his daughter Libby Brooker is a goalie on the CSU soccer team!  It took us a minute, but this spring we finally got properly acquainted over lunch, followed by a long-form conversation in The LoCo Experience studios.  Todd is the second Texan I’ve had on the podcast, and the second from Austin - apparently the Fort Collins of that state. I’m hoping for Joe Rogan or Lex Fridman as my third such citizen - intros welcome!  

Cawley, Gillespie & Associates (CGA) is a 60+ year petroleum engineering, geology, and valuation firm that Todd has worked at for 32 years, and been President of for more than 10 years.  The firm has ~35 employees in two offices, and is something of a boutique firm in the industry.  Owners of oil wells all over the nation - and beyond - hire CGA to evaluate potential acquisitions or support creation of audited financial statements to comply with Sarbanes Oxley.  I wanted to bring Todd onto the show because he knows a lot of things about a lot of things, especially as it pertains to the oil and gas industry in our nation.  

Todd is a proud dad, loving husband, and VP and Board Member of the Town & Country Optimists Club in Austin.  He’s a part-time Fort Collinsian now, and fits right in - and when he moves here full-time in the future I’ll try to snag him for the Breakfast Rotary Club and maybe as a LoCo Facilitator - he’d be great.  So please join me in enjoying my conversation with oil industry expert and my new friend, Todd Brooker.  

The LoCo Experience Podcast is sponsored by: Logistics Co-op | https://logisticscoop.com/

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Music By: A Brother's Fountain

I got acquainted with Todd Brooker through LinkedIn. Where we follow some of the same voices and learn last fall that he spends a lot of time in Fort Collins. Where his daughter Libby Brecker is a goalie on the CSU soccer team. It took us a minute but this spring we finally got properly acquainted over lunch and followed that with a long form conversation in the loco experience studios. Todd is the second Texan I've had on the podcast and the second from Austin. Apparently the Fort Collins of that state. I'm hoping for Joel Rogan or Lex Friedman as my third such citizen. Introductions welcome. Colleague Lesbian Associates is a 60 plus year petroleum engineering, geology, and valuation firm that Todd has worked at for 32 years and been president of for more than 10. The firm has around 35 employees in two offices and is something of a boutique firm in the industry. Owners of oil wells all over the nation and beyond hire CGA to evaluate potential acquisitions or support creation of financial statements to comply with Sarbanes Oxley. I wanted to bring Todd onto the show because he knows a lot of things about a lot of things, especially as it pertains to the oil and gas industry across our nation. Todd is a proud dad, loving husband, and the VP and board member of the Town and Country Optimist Club in Austin. He's a part time Fort Collinsian now and fits right in, and when he moves up here full time in the future, I'll try to snag him for the Breakfast Rotary Club and maybe as a local facilitator. He'd be great. So please join me in enjoying my conversation with oil industry expert and my newest friend, Todd Brooker. Let's have some fun. Welcome to the Low Cove Experience podcast. On this show, you'll get to know business and community leaders from all around Northern Colorado and beyond. Our guests share their stories, business stories, life stories, stories of triumph and of tragedy, and through it all, you'll be inspired and entertained. These conversations are real and raw and no topics are off limits. So pop in a breath mint and get ready to meet our latest guest.

Curt:

Welcome back to the Loco Experience. I'm here today with Todd Brooker, and Todd is the president of Collie Gillespie and Associates, Associates, also known as CGA. Uh, what's CGA up to, Todd?

Todd:

Thanks for having me, Kurt. Um, well, CGA, we're doing the same thing we've been doing for 60 years. Uh, believe it or not, our business has been around almost 63 years coming up and I've been there for half of it, 32 years. Wow. Coming up on 32 and um, we're a bunch of petroleum engineers and geologists that value oil and gas properties. Yeah. It's pretty much what we do.

Curt:

You were saying kind of almost like an appraiser for oil wells. A

Todd:

lot of appraising, a lot of oil wells, um, a lot of looking at a lot of deals, you know, oil and gas transaction, whether it's divestiture or an acquisition, financing, things like that. Um,

Curt:

so if the. Value is so easily known. How, how do people buy and sell and trade these wells? It happens a lot, right? Or maybe that's why you get paid the big bucks is to try to figure out what it's actually worth.

Todd:

Yeah, we do have fairly high billing rates and that people do pay as well, but we do a lot of detailed work because it's not easy. Uh, you need to know what you're doing. You need to know the basin you're in. You need to understand oil and gas principles, um, hydrology and geology, you know, producing mechanisms. Right. So it's not really

Curt:

just a numbers game. It's also. All the extra stuff. Transport.

Todd:

There's a, there's a lot that goes into it. And, um, you got to know where to get the data. You got to know how to clean the data. You know, you got to see what it's telling you. You got to make sense of it and project out a forecast on, on every well that we look at. And, and then on the other side of producing and making revenues, you have expenses. All kinds of expenses goes into drilling a well or, producing a well. And knowing that or knowing rules of thumbs to apply to get that value right so that you're not overbidding, uh, or you want, you know, you want to be, you know, when you're the winning bidder, the problem is you pay, you're paying the highest price, right? Right. Right. Which

Curt:

you can always buy it if you want it, but it might not make any sense.

Todd:

Yeah, exactly. And we try to keep our clients out of trouble. We try to make, make sense of what they're going after. If they're trying to acquire some properties. And a lot of what we do is bring some sensibility to their thoughts, because sometimes they can get a little irrational or exuberant and want to buy these properties at all costs. But maybe they're looking at it, you know, through rose colored glasses and we know something they don't.

Curt:

And is it, uh, Already producing wells. That's your focus. Do you look at just like land that could have some wells on it and stuff to

Todd:

that's a good question. A lot of it is producing wells. There's hundreds of thousands in the United States and those are transacting all the time. But as you know, they're drilling all the time. New wells are coming into the picture and, uh, companies are out there exploring for oil and gas, developing new acreage that may not have production every day of the week. And so that's where that's where the It's easy to forecast something when you have a lot of data points, when you know, okay, this well has been producing for the last 20 years and here's the numbers and anybody, a child could draw a forecast through some of these wells because they're so consistent. But when you don't have production data, what do you do? And that's the, the science that comes into a lot of what we do and understanding. That's

Curt:

why you need the geologists

Todd:

and the different kinds of engineers and

Curt:

stuff.

Todd:

Exactly. It may require geology, uh, work. Uh, you may need to determine how big is that tank, how much oil is in that tank and water and gas, and what's it going to look like when you produce it? Right. What portion can I get out of the ground?

Curt:

Well, and with fracking, I imagine how much fracking intention is going to be needed to shake it loose. Yes. Fracking

Todd:

is remarkable for several reasons. I know it's, it's, it's got a little bit of a, uh, taint. Oh, I think it's amazing. Yeah, it's amazing, but, you know, unfortunately the media has a little tainted, but the reality is that fracking has, has, uh, done miraculous things for the U. S. A. to be

Curt:

energy independent.

Todd:

But the reason fracking was invented was mainly to unlock this rock, this shell rock that it's, it's just concrete. It's like super, super hard, super, uh, not, not permeable at all, not porous at all, but it contains a lot of hydrocarbons. And for the first half of the oil and gas business decade, for the first 50, 60 years, we ignored those zones. Right. Never drilled, never produced them. Uh, but. Uh, they, that's, that's where the oil and gas comes from. It might leak out of that shell zone. Oh, is that right? Usually it's there. It, it's, it's the kitchen. It, it, it produces the hydrocarbons and that leaks off into those other zones. So like

Curt:

even in Texas where it's been comparably easy because it's, you don't have, you could drill a lot before the fracking technology was developed. There's still basins of this rock that is leaching into and out of these sandier zones.

Todd:

Leaching from the shell into sandier zones and those sandier zones is where they trapped the oil previously. And we got them. It was so easy. We drilled right into them. They were somewhat porous, somewhat productive right out of the gates. And uh, but the shell zones were not like that. And so the fracking enabled. To blast that rock, apart. They basically pulverize it to allow hydrocarbon to flow. On top of that, when you layer in horizontal drilling where you can drill a mile or two miles, or even three miles, Is what a lot of basins are going to now where they can. Um, it just is a. unlocks an incredible amount of hydrocarbons to come from one well bore.

Curt:

Yeah. Whereas

Todd:

that could have been 10 to 15 well bores in the old

Curt:

days. Wow. Interesting. That's so much more efficiency unlocked by that. Yeah. And it's just a long pipe, right? That's most of the infrastructure.

Todd:

That's typically one to two miles underground and makes the turn. And, uh, and you can imagine if that replaces 10 wells, Think about the surface, how, how much, you know, smaller. So that's, you've heard about pad drilling. Well, that, that's why they have pads. They, they drill multiple wells from a pad that goes in all directions. Oh,

Curt:

I see.

Todd:

And it's just a very efficient spot to produce all the oil to one location with all the tanks. Right. And the trucks can come in and haul it away or the pipe, pipe can take it away. So.

Curt:

Let's talk about, um, your firm. Like how many, is it, it's, there's partners with you? How many employees overall? It's a, kind of a boutique y thing for what you do, I suppose. Or is there a big firms in your industry too?

Todd:

That's a good way to describe it. We are a boutique firm, uh, about 35 employees. Uh, so we're sizable. We can, we can take on any kind of projects and we do, uh, but, you know, some of our larger competitors, there's, there's three or four of them that are, that maybe have around a hundred employees, you know, engineers, geologists, geophysicists, just like us. Yeah. Um, we're not trying to be them. Uh, we, we, uh, we like where we're at. Uh, yeah, we could add some or take some away, but I love that size because it allows us to be responsive. You know, it doesn't matter to us if you're a small client or a large client, we, we pick up the phone. We will talk to you. We will work with you. Uh, we understand that, that our business and the way we appraise Wells, uh, there, there are some guesstimates you have to make. You have to make a lot of assumptions when you don't, when you don't have a camera down hole or you don't have, you're not two miles down in the earth and you can see what's going on. You have to infer a lot, but we understand that, that And so we work with our clients and listen to what they have to say, take in their data, and, and then we have to make that into our own. And in the end, we end up with a valuation that is called a Gillespie's valuation of some assets, but it might involve a lot of client input. And in some cases, our clients don't have any technical staff and they're just like, please help us. And we do most of the heavy lifting. There's, there's others that hand off a nice little package and say, look, we've done a lot of work here. I've been working on it for three months. You've got a week. Tell us what you

Curt:

think. Yeah. We, we need your. stamp of validation, ultimately kinda. And is this uh, do you face a lot of liability risk for saying this is the value? I mean, appraisers in real estate kind of have at least some liability risk if things go south or whatever. How's that?

Todd:

Well, yeah. I mean, you, you can face some liability risk. Uh, we, we don't typically face, uh, in my time, I haven't seen any, uh, private transaction and, and, and the reason is, and you do good

Curt:

work, hopefully, right? Well, we try

Todd:

to, and we, but we try to, we have guidelines we have to follow, either whether it's federal guidelines through the SEC, uh, or through, uh, the Society of Petroleum Engineers, uh, they also have some guidelines we follow and, and other, depending on what country you're working in, they have guidelines and we stick to that. And, um, and so, on top of that, we, you know, we, we So it's not

Curt:

much art. There's a lot more science to it than art in some ways.

Todd:

Yes. Yes. And, you know, we try to put away our biases. We're a third party, independent petroleum consulting firm. And people come to us hoping for an unbiased opinion on a value. And so, we try our best to hone in on that value. Uh, there is, there are error bars in what we do. Um, and, you know, you mentioned, well, liability. The day we go live with a new report, a valuation of a bunch of wells, it's probably wrong. And the reason is because we had to, we had to pick an effective date. Let's just say February one, we had to pick a price deck to run with for the next 50 years, which is a little ludicrous. If you've ever, you know, what were you doing when

Curt:

prices went from 60 down to negative briefly there during COVID nation? Well,

Todd:

I'll be honest, I was panicking a little bit. I'm sure. I'm like, what is going to happen to our firm after being here 60 years and it's going to go down in flames and right under my watch. And I'm seeing client after client go bankrupt, client after client gets smash code into a consortium of companies. And now we have all the consolidation in the industry. So, uh, that part's been troublesome. But. But back to your liability, don't really see it, uh, uh, see it, uh, as a liability and putting out our valuations because we follow standards and it is what it is. I mean, the prices can change tomorrow and you're wrong, right? And it's not your fault. You don't, I don't control the markets, right?

Curt:

I'm just thinking about, I was in banking, of course, uh, as we talked about. Talked about at lunch and the, the major banks acting badly was the major cause of the, of the financial crisis in 2008, 2009, with all the derivatives and funny money mortgages and all that. And the, the cure for that became regulations so stringent that the small independent banks really couldn't even survive anymore. And it's brought about more rapid consolidation into the rules of the, you know, the too big to fail was. Too big to exist, and now you guys have had the same kind of consolidation from a Outside kind of government force or the reaction to the pandemic. I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah. The reactions to the pandemic threat. Yeah. Sorry.

Todd:

Yeah. Well, there's a lot to unpack. They're the industry. After Enron, the Enron debacle before you're talking about back in 2001.

Curt:

Yeah,

Todd:

they enacted the Sarbanes Oxley Act, which created the Much more stringent guidelines on, um, on valuations and, and following standards. And so it doubled or tripled the amount of governance or due diligence you have on every transaction on every report. And, and we felt a

Curt:

big windfall for you. firm or did you grow a lot because of that or you intentionally tried to not get too big and gross?

Todd:

It wasn't a windfall for us but, but it did help. What it was a windfall for is the accounting firms that go through financials and, and, and they, they doubled and tripled their staff. They grew and law firms. Right. I mean the amount of law, law and litigation and things that came out of that, it was just You So law firms got bigger, accounting firms got bigger. We may have grown a little bit, but, but we did shrink a little bit through the last four or five years with COVID and, um, so

Curt:

industry shakeup kind of thing. Yeah. That's one thing, you know, not all service organizations are created equal. And, you know, while there's definitely some good accounting and law firms out there, they're generally kind of leeches on the system, you know, the companies that manufacture things or pull energy out of the ground and make it available or help companies do that kind of stuff. It's a lot less yucky, but the, the law and the accounting and some other things are just kind of a drag. that actually is productive.

Todd:

Yeah, I'm involved in a lot of transactions that are publicly traded companies. And, uh, and so you, you typically on, on those kinds of transactions, you might have five to 10 different banks that are involved and then five different law firms that are involved and five different, uh, uh, financial accounting firms involved and then maybe environmental. And some of the calls we get on when you, when you hear everybody hang up, Uh, hundreds sometimes and you just think about the math. Everybody on that call is getting paid.

Curt:

Yeah, like 200 bucks an hour or more. Yeah,

Todd:

well some of them, some of them are getting transaction fees that are coming later. But yeah, you think about the attorneys or my firm, we're owned by the hour. I mean that cash register is But you're right. That is a lot of fees that have to get paid, but you know. The reason it happens is because the system works and it's very complex because Sarbanes Oxley and all the new laws and now all the new federal regulations we're facing, that requires an incredible amount of due diligence that you didn't have to do before. So, you know, I didn't

Curt:

really realize the extent to which other industries had a significant rate regulation increase because of that. How much so?

Todd:

Yeah. I mean, you think about a stock is a stock is a stock, right? If it's, if it's oil and gas versus automotive versus, yeah, you know, whatever it, you know, it still goes through federal regulations.

Curt:

Sure. It's still buyer beware ultimately, but, uh, the degree to which is maybe less. So,

Todd:

but you know, also, uh, if, if. I'm not sure how much your listeners know about oil and gas, uh, in general, but it, you know, in a thousand well transaction, it could involve four different States and hundreds and hundreds of oil and gas leases. And every one of those leases have to, has to be reviewed and for title and, and ownership. And, and then, and then there's also the environmental side of that goes with it. Those properties have to be inspected. Are, you know, are you buying into a field that has Known problems they didn't tell you about and so if you just think about Hundreds and hundreds of leases involved in a transaction. That's just that's just the land.

Curt:

Yeah

Todd:

It's just it's a very complex thing to get those deals done. And that's why it requires a lot of people

Curt:

What is a what is the oil well worth like just one on the average kind of all the way across the board? What's an oil well worth?

Todd:

That's a good question. Uh, you know, there's vertical oil wells, uh, which, which was early in my career, that's all there was. And now it's mostly what I'm deal I deal with is horizontal wells. Sure, that makes sense. Um, so what's it worth? Um, obviously, it's

Curt:

like The present value of the future

Todd:

income. That's it's almost like, what's that car worth? What kind of engines under the hood? Is it, is it Fred Flintstone using his feet? That's a little cheap. Well, or is it have, you know, a big, a thousand horsepower engine and some oil and gas wells are that way. I mean, right here in Colorado, not far from us where we're sitting, you know, is the, uh, DJ basin. Um, uh, that's one of the largest, uh, natural gas fields in, in the U S but, uh, but has fantastic oil production and some of those horizontal wells that typically costs five to six or 7 million. To drill. Alright. Some less, some more depending on, you know, lateral length and, and frack design. Completion design. Uh, but they can return, you know, 20, 30, 40,$50 million in revenue over its life, depending on when Did it come online? Did it come online during a period of. Poor prices or is it good prices? Is it a, you know, efficient operator? Um, but it really is a huge mixed bag. So maybe

Curt:

anywhere from a million to 20 million, like a small vertical well might only be a million dollar asset or something.

Todd:

It could be. I mean, it's almost funny to talk about it at all, but you know, on top of the well itself, it could have 20 different owners. It could be the operator that owns 70%, then you have the landowner might have some, and then it's, you know, part parts of it, you know, farmed out to others. And so there's, there's a lot of different owners involved in that. But, um, that's a good, that's a good question. But like, um, in this base and in the DJ basin, uh, the, the wells aren't as expensive as they are to drill, say in the Delaware basin in Texas. in West Texas, or Southern New Mexico. Those costs quite a bit more. They're, they're almost double the cost.

Curt:

Harder? Deeper? A

Todd:

little, little deeper, a little different rock. And, uh, you know, a little different production profile as well. They Sometimes when you're drilling deep, it might require an extra, uh, string of casing, which casing is just, uh, you know, a tubular, you know, the rubber around the

Curt:

drill kind of, right. Or whatever.

Todd:

Yes. Yeah. It, it holds, it holds the earth back from caving in on you. And sometimes when you're drilling, you may have to run an extra string and that alone can cost you another million. So it,

Curt:

it, extra string is another casing.

Todd:

Yeah. Another, yeah, I say string, they call it string, but when you're looking at something that's. two miles long. Uh, it actually, I mean, honestly, a tubing string that goes two miles long or all the way down to where the reservoir is, it actually almost behaves like rubber band. I mean, it's, it's elastic because it is steel, but you know, steel is somewhat pliable. Sure. Yeah, it's a lot of weight.

Curt:

Is that all one piece or the bolts together or welds together, I suppose?

Todd:

No, they're, uh, there's, there's sections that are screwed together. Yeah. Yeah. And that's typically when you're driving down the road and you see a Derek. That Derek exists for two things to, to, yeah, to, to hold the pipe up and have it ready to, to go in the well, but also it may be carrying a big, you know, block that's, that's pulling that pipe up or, or dropping it into the well, because you need to have a heavy duty structure to be able to handle that kind of weight.

Curt:

I imagine, yeah. Um, couple of questions on your firm. How do you guys organize? You're the president and then most of you are engineers and of various sorts and whatever. Do you have. Like an administrative function. Do you have VPs of this or that? Like, how do you, uh, manage the operation?

Todd:

Yeah, good, uh, good question. I didn't answer you before, but we do have nine partners at the firm. Um, they're all, uh, they've all been at the firm for at least, you know, seven, eight years before you can become a partner. And typically a partner is, is. vote it in based on their performance. You know, if you're, you know, if you're a good, uh, good performer, um, you know, there's some people that can kind of make it rain, so to speak, where they can bring in projects left and right. Uh, there's others who are just, they're machines. They can just, they can, they love the work and they just build hour after hour, after hour, clients love them. Uh, but, but usually those, those, those kinds of, um, uh, associates make partner, but pretty much everyone at our And, uh, and efficient at what they do and, and I'll say that, and anybody can say that, but the reality is that, um, people don't stay around that long if they, if they're not pulling their weight. And it's not we terminate anyone. We try, we try to be very select, select one who we, um, hire, but, um, we also make it clear up front. We're not here to hold your hand. We want self sufficient people who know how to ask the right questions, pay attention, take good notes. We don't want you asking, you can ask once, you can ask twice, but if you ask three times, that's a red flag, right? Right,

Curt:

right. And after a while, we don't even want you to ask twice anymore.

Todd:

Yeah. That, that could be the case. But, but I, I'm, I'm blessed with some really, really good, uh, engineers and, and geologists and, and data analyst techs type at the firm, and that's kind of pretty much what we're made of. We have a few back office staff. Yeah, I was gonna say, but billing

Curt:

and different things like that.

Todd:

Yeah. But we're, but we're very lean and mean and, and we try to do that'cause a, I want'em stay profitable, but, um, you know, everybody has kind of learned. various parts of, of patrolling consulting. It's not, no, one's a one trick pony at our shop. You can't just do one thing or they work in one basin. Everybody works in every basin. We want everybody to have. Uh, the experience, because sometimes you go into a meeting and you may be talking about three or four basins. Right. Or the deal you're working on that you gotta, you gotta know, you gotta be able to see something right away and you can say, that does not smell right. And we do a lot of smell tests in our business. Okay. Uh, clients will call and say, Hey, we're about to spend 20 million, but can you give me three hours? Can you just look at this for me and tell me, does something not make sense? And, uh, and. And often we'll do that for free just because we want our clients to be successful because they'll come back to us if they are. Um, but. Anyway, back to the firm. You, you asked, so I told you about the partners and the employees, but we're, we're very flat where if you want a title, you can have it at our firm. We do have some vice presidents. Uh, Zane Meekins is an executive vice president, uh, and, and he and I are equals at the firm. I mean, he's way smarter than me. Uh, and, and he, he's a talented person. He, he's a billing machine, but, um, But he, he and I have, you know, been there. Kind of the main leaders of it. How do you

Curt:

keep projects straight? Like, I'm thinking that there's multiple people working on almost every client's project. Yeah. Right? It's not just a one on one, by the hour kind of an engagement.

Todd:

Correct. It's typically a team, uh, that works on each project. It could be a two person team. It could be four. I see. Um, we've had There's just kind

Curt:

of a team lead for each one, kind of, to make sure that the project stays on track and Yeah. deliverables are known.

Todd:

Normally, there's a team lead and it's normally, typically one of the partners, uh, but we have some non partners who, who will make partner, I'm, I'm certain if they want it, you know, cause you, you have to, you have to want to do it and you have to choose,

Curt:

choose

Todd:

to

Curt:

join. Some years it turns out we don't make any money. Yeah. And then all the partners get a pay cut.

Todd:

Yeah. I mean. Yeah. The last few years have presented some challenges, uh, it's, it, you know, the, the stories you hear about in the press, it's, you know, every business is up, up, up, and this is a great story and all that. But as you know, cause we talked about it, uh, there's times don't go the way you think they will. And,

Curt:

um, but what did you do to survive that? Like, cause I'm sure your revenue is just about went to nothing. You got some PPP, I suppose, but did you do like leave of absences or have to do anything like that in your firm?

Todd:

I'll say, almost did nothing, Kurt. And, um, and I will say, and it's because historically we've done nothing in that. In that I, we, in the time that I'd been at the firm, we had never had layoffs and I didn't want to be the first person, you know, as president of the firm, having layoffs. And. Um, and, and we didn't, we didn't have layoffs, but we did have a couple of people that left, which, uh, you know, It was okay. It was okay. They don't have enough work for you anyway. They had, yeah, they had great opportunities and, and maybe they saw the writing on the wall. So that, that helped. And, um, and, and, You know, we, we hustled as best we could. Everybody knew that, you know, everybody was on high alert. Right. And, um, we were worried about what was going to happen to our firm, but the reality is that oil and gas continued to flow and transactions continued to happen at a lower, at a lower level.

Curt:

Right.

Todd:

Uh, banks still required their oil and gas operators. Sarbanes Oxley was still going. Yeah. Right. Lawyers were lawyering. Accountants were accounting. So you didn't suffer as

Curt:

much as a lot of your clients probably.

Todd:

We didn't. But, you know, we saw a cutback. But we didn't, we didn't suffer. Um, you know, we didn't have any salary cuts. We were just blessed. Uh, our, our, the way we work, it's typically salary and bonus. With bonuses based on performance. That's what I was going to say. I was going to ask that next. So, you know, bonuses got squeezed and, you know, and, and. If that's the biggest problem we faced on our compensation level, I'm actually pretty happy with that. But, uh, but you know, it's because our employees and partners, You know, kept pushing through all that and, and, um, but, but yeah, I don't want to go through that again.

Curt:

Oh, good. Yeah. I hope we don't. Yeah. Um, I was going to ask for maybe kind of a flyover of the industries. You've mentioned a few different basins already as far as the, you know, the Permian, the DJ, et cetera. Um, talk to me about like, yeah, airplane ride over the nation and what, what's it cost? What's it valued at? Is there better and less good oils, different places? Where's the gas at? Okay.

Todd:

Okay. That's, that's a good question. And I'll start with prices, oil and gas prices. As you know, right now, oil is trending around 85 per barrel, which is high. It, it's, it's been below 80 for quite a while, but it's, you know, in the fifties and sixties, we're doing okay. But when it gets up in the seventies and eighties, that's very healthy. So oil is very high right now. Now, natural gas though, Is very low. Oh, really? It's below 2. And, and, and, you know, we're going into the summer months, you know, coming up in the next few months, so.

Curt:

Probably get cheaper still before it gets better.

Todd:

It could, it could. Uh, the reality is that our industry is so very good. at drilling oil and gas wells, that we can almost deliver oil and gas real time, really natural gas. Um, we have, we have two basins that have massive gas wells. There's the, there's the Hainesville Shell, which is in, um, in western, uh, Louisiana and Eastern East Texas.

Curt:

Okay.

Todd:

Then we have the Appalachian Basin up on the East Coast, which is mainly Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio.

Curt:

Yep.

Todd:

That's the biggest one. Uh, we're talking TCFs of gas up there. Well, that was

Curt:

handy for the Northeast to be able to heat all those houses in the winter months, having all that gas right there.

Todd:

You are touching on a sore subject, sore subject. That natural gas would be the people up in, up in the North, uh, far Northeast. They would love to have that gas, but New York won't let them put pipelines across the state to get it there. They have to bring in heating oil on ships into their ports to, to get through the worst part of the winters

Curt:

because New York. New

Todd:

York, um,

Curt:

so. Does New York

Todd:

get some? Um, well, I mean, yeah, some, but. Not as much. They've banned, they've banned drilling. Wow. They've banned fracking. Wow. And if you, if you actually look at a map, you know, Pennsylvania sits right below New York. Right. You know, there's a border. And New York's

Curt:

super skinny right there. Super skinny. It doesn't have to go through that much.

Todd:

But if you look at oil and gas development, it goes right up to the border. Uh, uh, New York and there's nothing on the other side and those poor farmers on the other side of that fence aren't getting anything right there like North Korea, South

Curt:

Korea line.

Todd:

It is exactly like that. And probably politically to, uh, I didn't say that, but, uh, but it has got exactly like that. And you think about the landowners and the farmers and all that, who had, who had nasty, nasty, unusable scrub land, or maybe it was farmland, but they are getting

Curt:

20, 000 a month It

Todd:

Oh, no, no. They get a lot more than that. Oh, whatever. Yeah. They get, they get tens of millions, uh, of dollars. Um, so just on the landowner perspective, it's tough, but New York, one won't allow Right. Think how much New York

Curt:

could tax all those people. They could. If you're listening to New York. Do you

Todd:

hear this? Well, the, the other ironic thing is that natural gas, uh, Is what has allowed the US to reduce its emissions over the last few decades because it's replaced coal and it's a cleaner burning fossil fuel and it really is going to be the way the world if the world is serious about reducing emissions. Uh, which the U. S. has been, it needs to continue that flip from natural gas, or from coal to natural gas. For sure. But we, we know some of the Asian countries right now, they're building coal plants at record paces. And, and they are all about energy security. I don't blame them for doing what they're doing, but while they are creating all these coal plants, and we're shuttering ours here, and, and, uh, Yeah, so we're making the world a

Curt:

cleaner place. We're trying. While they, you know, make dirtier air for everybody.

Todd:

We are trying. And natural gas. Well, and that's the

Curt:

fallacy of, of Europe in their cancellation of all the energy industries over there is, you know, okay, you can make Europe maybe a cleaner place, arguably, but it'll, the world's going to be dirtier and your people are going to be poorer.

Todd:

poor. Sorry. Yeah. I understand what they did. And, um, you know, maybe it was fashionable at the time, but they are, they are changing their tune. They, they, they are, uh,

Curt:

if I was in Germany, I would be lobbying to like build nuclear plants.

Todd:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, at least natural gas, the irony of not using natural gas is one thing, but shutting in nuclear is, which is these things. You know, the most dense, cleanest, you know, cleanest fuel that we have, um, you know, compared to solar or wind, uh, it's, it's just ludicrous. But uh, anyway, it is, so our big

Curt:

gas things are up by Pennsylvania and stuff and then down by Louisiana. And then there's other less major ones, I guess, like the one over here. You know, East of Greeley and stuff.

Todd:

Yeah, DJ Basin's fantastic for natural gas. And all those basins added up around the United States, there's, there's eight or nine or ten basins that, that deliver natural gas to the U. S., not to mention the Gulf of Mexico, where massive amounts of oil and natural gas come from. Okay. Um, that, that natural gas, we're so good at getting it to markets that, you know, we kind of, we, we shoot our own foot off because the moment the gas pushes up, gas prices push up to three, four dollars. The rigs come back, and then here comes the production, and it just comes right back down. Uh, so, I'm simplifying things here. I mean, that's market

Curt:

competition though, right? Like, that's kind of what it's for.

Todd:

It is. It is. But the other thing that's kind of changed the game for the United States is that LNG, or liquefied natural gas, is cherished. In Europe and, and, and other areas of the world that need that energy that they can't get from other places. And we have, we're, we're building LNG plants. We're shipping LNG overseas. We have contracts for 10, 20 years to deliver, and there's more coming online. Uh, but there's some regulatory things that have slowed that down.

Curt:

That's probably why the. Russi Ukraine war will last a long, long time, because otherwise Europe would just buy gas from Russia, so we have to have time to develop that market for our LNG. And they were,

Todd:

and they were buying a lot through the Nord Stream Pipeline, but that got blown up, as you know.

Curt:

Got blown up.

Todd:

Got blown up. I know. I can see you want to go down.

Curt:

Just check it with, you know, if you know anything,

Todd:

I have not investigated it personally, but I've heard, I've heard there might be some people not too far from us that, that might've had some, uh, who knows? But, you know, they cut off that gas supply to Europe, so they're desperate for our gas. So, the markets exist, but we just can't get it over there fast enough. So, I think long term, natural gas is the bridge fuel, and it's going to be a great place to be long term. But right now, oil is king, and it continues to be king, because the prices are good. We're good at delivering oil wells. It's super

Curt:

easy to transport anywhere. You know, gas, you can't really do it without pipelines and lines and stuff, right?

Todd:

Yep, it, well.

Curt:

Oil's dense enough where you can take it somewhere with a truck or a train, it's not quite as dense. You're right. So expensive to move around in that way.

Todd:

That is true. That is true. And, and it's, you know, energy dense and it also can be refined into so many products that the world needs. Yeah.

Curt:

Make your WD 40, your REI jacket.

Todd:

Like it. Yeah. REI jacket. True. True. I mean, I, I wished, uh, I wish the public. throughout the world, not just the U. S. But throughout the world understood that virtually everything they see and everything that's around them in the room there and was developed using hydrocarbons, fossil fuels. Um, and that's the way it is. And it's gonna be that way until I die. It's gonna be that way for a long time because there's no replacements. Just because let's just say you you want to have energy from solar or energy from wind or develop, get electricity from those things. That doesn't mean that you can get on a jet and fly to Europe. It doesn't mean you can, you can make concrete.

Curt:

Dow Chemical can't exist without the petroleum industry.

Todd:

It doesn't mean you can have certain medicines. It doesn't mean a hospital can operate machinery that they need to keep people alive because that machinery and, and how it's constructed and how it's energized is through fossil fuels and hydrocarbon. So, uh, I, I hope people start to understand that, but you know, uh, I will say this, I just want to make it clear. I'll I think all energy is good. I think we're going to need more of it. Assuming that the population of the Earth continues to grow, and, and the population on the Earth that is either impoverished or doesn't have what we have, they want what we have. For sure. They want refrigerators. Right. They would like a car. Well, energy is money. I've been fond

Curt:

of saying that, you know, you can just print money apparently, but you can't just print energy. You have to go dig it out of the ground or get it from here to there.

Todd:

You can't. And so I assume that, that those, those, uh, less fortunate, uh, countries and, and, you know, continents almost are going to want a better life. Yeah. And how's the fuel reserves at Africa? Do you know about that? I'm sorry.

Curt:

In Africa? What about it? Like, do they have energy reserves over there? Coal, oil, natural gas? Yes,

Todd:

they do. Uh, it's not being developed much at all, except for offshore. Uh, there's, there's some nice offshore, um, opportunities that are happening with some of the major operators that are doing things in conjunction with some of the countries there. But you know, virtually every continent you can think of, it's, uh, maybe you can, you You can, uh, not think of the arctics, but virtually every continent has significant shale resources.

Curt:

Okay.

Todd:

Many of them could do exactly what we do here.

Curt:

Australia, South America. Absolutely.

Todd:

Australia has a lot of coal and they have coal bed methane and which we have in the United States as well. But, but they have that over there as well. And they've developed that long, long time ago and have been producing natural gas, uh, you know, through their coal seams. Um, but virtually every continent has that, but they just don't have the. The knowledge or the resources to develop that or in some cases they're being asked not to develop it,

Curt:

right?

Todd:

You know, you know,

Curt:

I saw that conversation. Did you see it with the Ghana maybe? Uh, it went viral last week. The president of Ghana was asked by some BBC guy, you know, Oh, you've got all these fossil fuel resources off your coast and, uh, you know, you're going to be developing all this. And what do you think about the climate impact of that or something? And he's like, dude, we have protected millions of acres of forests in Ghana through intentional efforts. Meanwhile, Britain doesn't have hardly a tree. Uh, so don't you lecture me about climate. We capture more carbon with our forests than, uh, we'll ever produce out of this oil field.

Todd:

Yep, and, and he's right. I mean, you think about, like, Europe, uh, you know, they, Even crazier in the United States, we take wood and we, you know, convert them into wood pellets, ship them over to Europe and Europe burns them there. And it's classified as a green, on the green side of renewables because we can, we can grow that tree again, right? Get cut it down. We can make more wood pellets. So it's renewable.

Curt:

Well, you capture the carbon and then you put it back in the I suppose. Yeah.

Todd:

It's, it is a little funny, but it's the world we live in and hopefully Most of those things that seem a little absurd, you know, we'll start lining themselves out. And, uh, and I'm hoping that our knowledge and our technologies here in the United States continue to spread around the world. And that actually does go help those countries get out of poverty because energy having energy means you can be, you can come out of poverty.

Curt:

Yeah.

Todd:

And, uh, it's just the way it is. I mean, just the, We take our cell phones so for granted and having Wi Fi. Right. And if you could be able to get cell phones into the hands of some of the impoverished, they might be able to, you know, request things. They could have banking. You could start new societies. Sure. In, uh, in ways that Well,

Curt:

yes, and you need more than that. You know, you need to be able to manufacture things. You need to be able to make food. You know, the energy to do that is beyond the Because the knowledge economy is great. You know, in the internet, digital world and having avatars, you know, sword fighting and metal land or something. But we still have to eat and live in places and drive around and get from place to place and all those things to make those things happen, cost energy.

Todd:

It does. Uh, it's amazing how much energy goes in just to fertilize and doing it, using a fertilizer for, for farming. And, uh, but you're right, you want to have a society that has goods and services that can be traded and to do that, you, it takes energy to get there no matter what it is, and, um, and, and there's just countries that still have virtually nothing and, uh, it's.

Curt:

Let's go back to the tour. So you've got the big gas areas. Talk to me about the oil basins. Like, is Texas still pretty prime time? Is it, there's just so much oil and Texas is going to last forever? Or is it going to run out someday?

Todd:

Yeah, good question. Uh, yeah, Texas is king currently. Uh, Southern New Mexico is, I'll put that in with Texas right now. They're kind of, the Permian Basin's right there and Permian Basin is king. Um, I'm not looking at the Gulf of Mexico right now, which is, you know, that's a, that's been developed for decades. And there's, there's big, big oil and gas coming out of that area and, and it will always be that way. But on land, Permian is king and uh, it's, you know, just the size of the oil wells are bigger and better than most. And, um, and there's, there's lots and lots of acreage to drill. And, and it's also pretty cool in that it's flexible, in that while oil is, is prices are high, you can go out and target oil wells. But as soon as the gas prices pushed back up, there's areas of the basin that have just massive gas deposits. And so, you know, it, it can keep going. Um, it. There are other basins you wanted to run around the country. I'm from

Curt:

North Dakota. Yeah, North Dakota. So obviously that's become an important basin in the last 20 years.

Todd:

It's been hugely important to me and our firm in that, in that, uh, you know, a decade ago, we did so much work in North Dakota in the Williston Basin and focused on the Bakken and the Three Forks zones. And, uh, and that's a beautiful oil play that, uh, that, uh, It wasn't the, the OG of, of horizontal oil drilling, but it really perfected a lot of techniques and as far as, as far as how you drill your wells, how you space them, how you complete them. And a lot of that was carried over into other basins. You know, the Permian, Permian came on late when it comes to horizontal drilling and oil wells.

Curt:

Oh, really? Yeah, it was too easy. The other stuff was just easier.

Todd:

Well, they had so much vertical production and there's so much, so many things to go get. And, but what was nice about in the Permian, they waited, uh, not strategically, but it ended up that way. The other basins perfected, you know, the Williston basin, uh, you know, any, any of the, you know, even, even the Barnett shale, which is, you know, around four, four of Texas. So they didn't have to be the early

Curt:

adopters. It was cheaper by the time they came down there.

Todd:

Didn't have to. And then, uh. Yeah. Uh, a lot of that horizontal development, um, a lot of us perfected through gas drilling, but as gas kind of fell out of favor with low prices, a lot of those rigs and it started moving to the Permian and they just kept coming there and, and the results kept getting better and better. And now it's, um, it is probably the most transactions are happening there by far, uh, the most productions coming out of there by far, uh, on land, on land based, uh, U. S. based land operations. But, you know, you've got the D. J. Basin here in Colorado, which produces a lot of oil. Um, and you have, you know, the, the Permian Basin, which is two basins really. It's the, the Delaware Basin and the Midland Basin. Okay. Um, and, and that's, Midland Basin's a little more central West Texas. And then you have, I mean, California's been producing their heavy oil forever and, and that's still going on. But, you know, California's a whole nother issue. And it's, it's a very tough regulatory environment. More like New York.

Curt:

Yeah.

Todd:

You got to really want to be there because it's tough to drill wells anymore or complete them. And so it's dwindling and they're importing more oil than ever there. Um, even though it's a very green, thought of as a very green state. Um, But, you know, Louisiana is still doing its thing. It's always had oil and gas production up and down the coast. A little more conventional drilling.

Curt:

southeast doesn't have it much?

Todd:

No, not much else in the southeast. Uh, there's the Eagleford, Eagleford Sheltron, which is in, in South Texas. Uh, I should have mentioned that as well. That, that is somewhat of an OG as well, as far as, um, I haven't thought about that. OG is also oil gas, but, uh, but it it's tens of thousands of wells have been drilled there as well, just like in the Permian and, uh, lots of lots of oil and gas comes out of that basin. Um, and then, you know, there's a smattering of medium sized basins. That's Um, but it's mainly central, uh, south central U S all the way up and up into Canada,

Curt:

Kansas and Nebraska, there's a little bit here and there, there's, there's,

Todd:

there's, there's fields all throughout that area. Um, a lot of it still might be vertical production and, and, you know, some older fields are there, they were vertical wells only, and they'll never be horizontal. Um, but. But the horizontal drilling has really revolutionized things for the oil and gas industry. And you asked about, well, is the Permian going to run out and not be king? When I joined the industry 30 plus years ago, I was, you know, I was told, yeah, the Permian's on its last legs. You know, most of those wells are on their, their shallow production or low production. And, uh, and it's tough to make money out there and oil prices were terrible. And, uh, you know, every basin just flipped in that it went from, okay, we've got some activity here and then horizontal drilling and then, and then hydraulic fracturing. changed the game. And every basin came back alive. And, uh, it's, you know, it's amazing what, what we did in figuring that out. Now, I will say a lot of money was wasted. Billions and billions and billions in capital were wasted in drilling. Wells at all costs to create growth in your company.

Curt:

Oh,

Todd:

it was all about growing prior to 2018 because you're chasing

Curt:

the stock price for

Todd:

maybe, or you're, you're, you currently, currently the industry is thriving on cashflow and it's, and delivering money back to their shareholders and making a nice return. Growth is not the name of the game. Now back prior to 2018 growth at all costs was the name of the game. Let's just say a private equity firm had a management team and they were backing them and they drilled, drilled, drilled. They got this acreage looking sexy and they sold it to the highest buyer. And they, every, they flipped the management team, made money. Private equity made 10 X the money or whatever. Uh, so it was, it was a, it was a buy and flip kind of a world.

Curt:

Yeah,

Todd:

I'm oversimplifying it.

Curt:

Yeah.

Todd:

But, um, But a lot of wells were drilled in that time frame just to meet that, you know, that, that threshold of getting to a point where you could flip. And a lot of those wells should have never been drilled. They drilled wells too close together. They drilled wells too fast. They drilled wells trying goofy things. completion techniques, didn't get their best wells, but as long as that machine was churning and you didn't do too many look backs, like, hey, how we doing over here, guys. Oh, don't pay attention to that our best well is coming up, you know, just, just ignore that carnage back here. Uh, And I had to do reserves on that and, and all of my associates did and, and, and presented some challenges and we were wrong and, and a lot of cases because some of that was moving so fast and you're trying to read the data and you're trying and to get the. Right.

Curt:

And do you have really good data? Like each well, how many gallons from each thing or is it more pools and collections or how's that? Is that hard to get that information?

Todd:

Yeah. For the most part, we can get by well production data, oil and gas production data, and that comes in barrels, uh, which is 42 gallons, you know, standard us barrel is 42 gallons and a natural gas isn't typically reported in, uh, millions of cubic feet or MCFs. And, um, the. Uh, the data either comes through a state agency, you know, the state, you have to report, uh, your oil and gas production to the state on a monthly basis. That, that is accumulated in the database. And you can go get it there. Sometimes you have to pay a little bit. Sometimes it's free, but there's also subscription services that we use. Uh, and, uh, there's a bunch out there now, uh, now that we're in a digital age, those there's companies that have been founded purely on delivering this production data to you. And so that data is typically available, uh, and it's on a monthly basis, but often. The company you're working with might be the operator and they have daily production. They even better data. Cause every day there's somebody in the field that's tallying, okay, this welded 140 barrels of oil and did this on gas. And it goes on a ledger and it works its way into the computer and then we can get it. That's even better data, because when you can see what the well's doing on a daily basis, it can tell you more things than on a monthly basis when you roll all that up. Because, you know, a well could stop producing for seven days during the month, and you look at that monthly number and you're like, why is that so low? I'm worried. And then, you know, if you see the daily ledger, you'll see, oh, they shut the well in because there was a grass fire nearby and they had to, you know, there's precaution. Yeah. And so I don't want to penalize them on reserves. Yeah. They actually have more left technically. Yeah. Yeah. They have more left technically. And so there, or there's, you know, you know, producing oil and gas is very complex, especially if you've, you know, you see the horse heads that are out there going up and down in the field. Sure. Grasshoppers is what we call them.

Curt:

But yeah. What do you call them? Grasshoppers. Grasshoppers. Yep.

Todd:

But you know, that's basically just a pump. That's just pulling, you know, pushing oil and gas to surface. Yeah. And, but, but that's all mechanical. You know, metal and that breaks just like, just like pistons

Curt:

break in a car. You got to grease the bearings and all that.

Todd:

Yeah. And it's a lot of, I mean, it's a lot of pipe in the well, a lot of metal pipe in that well, and to, to fix a one hole in the tubing, you might have to go down. You know, 400. Sections of pipe to get to that. So you gotta pull all that outta the well. Oh wow. Fix it, put it all back in. And that can take days. And so mechanical things happen to wells and that can impact the monthly production data. Sure. So in the daily you can see that better.

Curt:

So those sleeves, like wear out and stuff, those, like you were talking about? Well,

Todd:

the ca the casing. The casing that, that, that creates the well wellbore that holds the earth back, that typically doesn't wear out. Oh, okay. But in, you know, in 34 50 and then there's a

Curt:

pipe inside of that casing and that has got a pump. thing going up and down and whatever

Todd:

else. We call that tubing inside the, inside the casings, the casing is really big tubing, but inside that is a smaller string of tubing and it's smaller diameter because, um, the reservoir might have enough pressure to push that oil out and that's one of the measurements you'll do. It's like, what's the best way to produce this? Well, and you'll, you'll, you'll design the diameter of that tubing based on. Uh, how are you producing the well, but often you'll have a ride that goes through that tubing that goes up and down on that grasshopper or horse head. And that is, it's a pump down there and it's just, it's just basically a pump that's pulling the, uh, yeah, it's old school, but that stuff breaks down. And so. operating wells in that environment. And then here in Colorado, you have tough weather. Oh my goodness. What you saw in Williston, uh, the winters there are brutal. Those, those roughnecks that work on those rigs and up in the Derrick or on the, on the rig floor in the middle of winter, my goodness. No, thank you,

Curt:

sir.

Todd:

They are earning their money. They get paid really well and they spend it really fast, but it's, it's tough. It's impressed that those are tough people to do that work.

Curt:

So how, uh, how long have you been the president of CGA?

Todd:

Uh, 2017, so. Okay. Uh, almost, yeah. Seven years now. Seven years-ish. Mm-Hmm.

Curt:

Um, did you have, uh, like imaginations of leadership before? Did you come through like an executive vice president role or something like that? Or how is, how did that transition occur? Straw, straw vote. Uh, everybody step back when they ask for volunteers to step forward.

Todd:

Uh, yeah, good question. There's a lot of history to the firm and my part of it. Um, in the end, you know, the partners voted me in and, um, and, you know, I'll, I'll be the first to say Zane Meekins could have easily have been president, uh, versus me, you know, he and I, he was there a little before me. And, uh, and, and, you know, again, he's one of the smartest people I know, but they voted me in and, and I don't know all the reasons, but, um, you know, we have three different offices. Uh, one headquarters is in Fort Worth. Uh, I'm in Austin, Texas, and then we have a Houston office. And, um, you know, I try to do a good job about interacting with all three offices and making my presence known. And, uh, and so maybe that helped me. I don't know. But, um, Either way, uh, if, if I was executive vice president, Zane was president, nothing would change in that we all are self sufficient at the firm. I'll do the same thing no matter what my title is. Like I said, if you want a certain title, you can have it. Uh, just as long as you get your stuff done, you can be, you can call yourself whatever you want. We're not going to pay you differently, but we'll get you a business card if you want it.

Curt:

How much of your time do you spend doing presidenty kind of things versus. and you know, just general client relations and stuff. And I'm sure there's a fuzzy line between there, right?

Todd:

Yeah, I do a lot less engineering than I used to. Uh, but more, mine's more in on the engineering side, it's more supervisory. Uh, I will look through the work that an engineer has done or geologist and, and. Either help guide them, make some changes, uh, point out issues,

Curt:

smell, test it,

Todd:

do some smell tests. Um, but, uh, every now and then I'll do a little bit more engineering than, than that, but not anymore. I, I, you know, I, I need to do, and we can talk about this in a little bit, but I need to do way more marketing and I need to, you know, build more relationships and I need just more networking. Um, and I'm trying, but you know, that plus, you know, the, just the day to duties that I have as far as. You know, certifying and looking at every reserve report that, that comes through Houston office or Austin office. Zane handles most of the stuff in Fort Worth. You know, I wanted to go across my desk and I want to look at it because my name's on it and like you mentioned liability earlier.

Curt:

Yeah.

Todd:

I don't want anything going out that has my name on it that I have not personally witnessed. If somebody's gonna get

Curt:

their butt in trouble, it would be you. Right. Probably.

Todd:

Right. Yeah. So, So, yeah, it's a lot more. Business development is pretty much what I do most of the time now.

Curt:

Is that because, I mean, you said, you know, I should really do a lot more marketing. It's just cause you guys could be a little busier just in general, or do you want to grow the team? Do you want to be a 50 person firm? Um, yeah.

Todd:

Yeah. Um, good question. Um, I like our size right now around 35, but I would be fine at 45. I'd be fine at 30. Uh, but I wanted, if we're going to go to 45 or 50, I want it to be the right, 50, but to, to add that kind of staff. I mean, you, you've got a staff here, you know, to keep them busy. That's a, I mean, it's a lot of new customers add 10 engineers. Yeah. That's a lot of new customers, a lot of new projects. And so that means there needs to be a lot more business development. So, you know, the people and the projects kind of go hand in hand. Uh, I don't wanna be overstaffed because it's, you know, just everybody's happier, everybody not

Curt:

that. Yep.

Todd:

Yeah. So. We try to stay very steady. The problem we face though, and you know, I've got some engineers that are ready to jump off a roof right now because December, January, February, March just kills them. Uh, because they, they work so many hours. Yes. Yeah, there's so many reports that have to go out because our clients have deadlines. They have to report to the feds. They have banks. They have, uh, Things like that. And so we've got to hit those deadlines. And so that means nights and weekends and juggling multiple, multiple projects. And, and a lot of those projects are very complex. So, uh, I have some people that are, that are ready for a break. And, but what typically happens is we start to slow down in April, May, June, and summer's kind of slow. So. People can catch their breaths. Then it starts to ramp back up later in the year. What I'm trying to work on is, is making those the middle part of the year, that, that trough, I want to raise that up a little bit. And usually that trough is filled with deal flow, oil and gas transactions. And unfortunately, since COVID hit and we've had. You know, mass bankruptcies, you know, companies being smashed into other companies and all the big consolidation that, you know, has been in the press lately, uh, it's reduced the number of deals that are out there. Uh, maybe not on a value basis because some of these, you know, mega 10, 20 billion deals make the value look the same in a year, but the transaction number is about 10 percent of what it was seven years ago. So that deal flow is not there like it used to be. And so our summer lulls have been more of a lull than I want. And so to your point, I, I, Um, and my point as well, I need to do more business development and bring that, the project flow up and keep them busy then. Um, the other option is maybe do we staff up? That's what I was going to

Curt:

say. Could you do a seasonal, but is there anybody smart enough that's available for that January through March season?

Todd:

There are there, you know, there's a lot of retirees in oil and gas that maybe, you know, Maybe their firm got bought out or, or it was an acquisition and he got a nice payday and he said, this is my time. I'm just going to take a break. Right. But those, those people might want to work 20, 40 hours a week. 25

Curt:

grand to work for three months, you know, in season.

Todd:

Exactly, exactly. So we might explore that a little bit more and, you know, I want my partners to be a part of that decision. Cause, um, you know, what makes us profitable is that we kind of suck it up during those four months, right? Right, right, right. And then we take it easy for, you know, a little bit easier. Uh, so

Curt:

yeah, does that, does it offset the profitability function, you know, whatever.

Todd:

Yeah. So it's, it's, it's, and it's tough to manage in this industry because the oil and gas prices are so extreme at times, like, like you mentioned during COVID negative 37 for one day.

Curt:

Right.

Todd:

Uh, and it's just, uh, so. It's kind of hard to know which direction to push things at all times. So to me, slow and steady has worked because the industry does goes up and it goes down. And even though it goes up and even though it goes down, our customers still have to report earnings. They still have to file. And so we, we stay steady through that. And if the industry is booming, We might staff up a little bit and, and ride that. But if it's, if it's down, we're just going to hold steady right there, you know, so it's a philosophy, right? It's one of the reasons

Curt:

to try to get good at marketing is so you can actually change the amount of revenues coming in the pipeline. Yes. Um, so that you can, you know, see, Oh, we got a little hole coming. Let's click up the ad rate or whatever, but I've never really found it to be that successful. Sounds like you haven't. Either necessarily.

Todd:

Yeah. You know, we don't sell widgets, you know, like we don't sell automobiles. And so our product is kind of a niche product. And so putting those kinds of ads just don't necessarily work or drive, drive revenues. Uh, you know, even if it

Curt:

was just a lawyer, need a divorce lawyer, you know, you could have that pop up on something. As a matter of fact, I am getting pretty sick of my wife. Yeah. Yeah.

Todd:

Yeah. Uh, yeah. But you know, different thing for you. Yeah. It is too complex. Yeah. But you know, you pointed out earlier, you know, maybe for you and for me, I think relationships and you know, being face to face, uh, if somebody, somebody knows your face and has heard you talk before, or maybe through LinkedIn or through your podcast or whatever, that changes the game for you versus them. On a plane and flipping through an ad and seeing a little tiny ad on whatever. Oh, I should call that guy. Yeah, yeah.

Curt:

Um, what else would you have folks know about the oil industry? Your specific perspective? Business operation, um.

Todd:

Well, uh, like I said, we're in a niche part of the industry. Uh, you know, oil and gas industry is vast. I mean, there's people that drill. There's people that produce. There's people that refine. Uh, there's landmen who, who deal on the surface and deal with leases and, and work with farmers and communities and all that. And there's, there's financial advisors and all that. Yeah, some are bigger

Curt:

than most people. people realize.

Todd:

It's, it's huge. And, and then the pipelines that go across the U. S. and the trucks and the trains that carry those hydrocarbons to get refined and all, it's a big industry. And we're in this tiny little space where, uh, you know, oil and gas companies need to have their assets valued. And sometimes they're required to have them valued by a third party independent company that's unbiased, ethical, has, you know, does all the things right, follows standards, and, and that would be us. And, and, and we do that work and hand it off to who? The audience. It might be a banker, a financial, you know, person. Could be accountants.

Curt:

Yeah. Private equity firm, whatever.

Todd:

Yeah. But that company might go use that for financing to help them go drill more wells or to help them repair some wells or to help them, you know, grow the company in some way. And, uh, so that's kind of our niche is valuing wells and, uh, and we're really good at it. And, uh, you know, I've got a team who's been doing it for quite a long time. Our average, I think our average, um, experience level is 15 years, you know? So no 17, excuse me. So that's, that's pretty dang good. We've got some four year experience and we've got one who's, uh, just, just had 50 years at the firm, shockingly. Yeah, no, yeah. He's a data analyst, uh, Tom Aardman, great guy. Um, So, so your question was about, um, Yeah, just what people

Curt:

should know. I mean, you're, you're firm, but it's, I guess, what's the future of the industry look like to you? Are we, uh, really depends a lot on the election in the fall, perhaps, at least for the near term. Will it be drill baby drill again if Trump is back in?

Todd:

Yeah, that's a good question. Um, I do think some things change, of course, uh, if you

Curt:

know, if legislation Turn the Keystone back on? Yeah, if the

Todd:

Keystone pipeline gets turned back on or, you know, some of the regulatory issues that might inhibit the LNG plants from being developed faster so we can serve those markets in Europe because Europe's been lucky the last couple of years. They didn't have harsh winters, but as soon as they have harsh winters, there's going to be people that die if they can't stay warm. And that LNG That natural gas that was liquefied that they can, uh, they can use over there. It, it will, it'll save a lot of lives. So, uh, so where's the industry going? Uh, I don't think we're going anywhere despite the rhetoric, despite what anyone hears through the media. And I don't care your source of the media. I don't care if you're a Fox news person or a CNN or MSNBC or. Twitter or X, uh, versus, you know, whatever, wherever you get your information, uh, I encourage everyone to just, you know, for, for a little bit, be a, try to just pretend to be a scientist, pretend to be a detective and do a little research and outside of your normal sphere of information. Because believe it or not, that pipeline of information you're getting may not be the full picture. It's one sided. And that's the way, that's the way social media and algorithms work as far as delivering you content that. You may want to see, and you lean towards, or they push you towards, and a lot of people don't even realize that's going on, uh, and, you know, I've seen it, I mean, it's impacted my daughters, I have three daughters, and, you know, I was a parent that had to deal with, you know, when do they get a phone, and can they have data on that phone, and how do you protect them from seeing things they shouldn't see? And you work, you work so hard at it. But boy, those, those companies are good at ge. You know, fi f the kids are smart'cause they can figure out how, how to get around it.

Curt:

Dad, why do you work for the devil? Yeah.

Todd:

Yeah. I, I hope I've got'em over that hurdle. Um, yeah. But, but

Curt:

it's not going anywhere for a, a real long time. It's going

Todd:

anywhere. No, and it can't, uh, really, because again, hospitals, jets, automobiles. roads, uh, just everything. Fertilizer. Fertilizer. I mean, we would not be able to feed the world without hydrocarbons because not only does it have to go into fertilizer, you need natural gas, you know, to, to help, you know, create nitrates to get to the fertilizer, but the machinery everywhere you go, there's John Deere tractors, right? Those are, those are diesel. And, and they're all over the world, or, or Caterpillar equipment. How do the

Curt:

electric tractors work?

Todd:

You tell me. You, you said, you said your dad's a farmer,

Curt:

so. I haven't seen one yet. I haven't seen one yet.

Todd:

Okay. Well, I mean, there are, there are electric. it

Curt:

actually wouldn't work bad in a tractor, like if it's, because it's going to have enough power, actually weight is a good thing. Yep. Because then the wheels don't spin and stuff when you're pulling tillage equipment and stuff.

Todd:

That's true. Uh, it does weigh quite a bit more, but that also can be a problem when it's, you know, wet, you know, foggy. Right, right, right. But, uh,

Curt:

I know, not your expertise.

Todd:

It's not, but, but I do know, let's, let's take it off the, off the farm and onto the road. Let's talk about like 18 wheelers.

Curt:

Oh, yeah.

Todd:

What, if you electrify an 18 wheeler versus a diesel, um, 18 wheeler hauling across the country. The country, let's say 18 wheeler is so much heavier when it's electric. And so therefore it has to carry a lot smaller load and then it has to stop and recharge for some amount of time on multiple points along the way. And so it would not only, well, even when it's

Curt:

empty, it's way heavier too. Exactly. So it's that much more damaging then. So it's carrying 20, 000 pounds less.

Todd:

Yeah, it's carrying less, so therefore you have to have more on the road, and, and that could potentially, you know, damage more roads. It's gonna, it's, it's gonna create congestion, it's, you know. It

Curt:

does.

Todd:

So, uh, similar thing on a farm. I just don't like

Curt:

things being mandated. You know, a choice is almost always better. The market will usually find a better way.

Todd:

True, true. But, you know, let me play devil's advocate here. If you're a climate alarmist, then you're like, well, Kurt, don't you care about the climate? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I do. Well, then you're letting all these diesel powered vehicles pollute the environment, Kurt.

Curt:

Well, but actually, if we're going to have more people in the world, we're going to need more carbon dioxide. to create enough food because plants eat carbon dioxide. No, no, no.

Todd:

Carbon dioxide is a pollutant. It's

Curt:

killing people. Come on. No, we just need to melt, melt the ice caps to get fresh water to water the deserts of Africa with. Um, and then it'll be paradise.

Todd:

Okay. We're getting off topic. I need to take a short break.

Curt:

Um, and uh, we'll reset with, uh, with little Todd back in second grade.

Todd:

Okay. Let's do it.

Curt:

And we are back. Thanks for that. I was squirming the last couple of minutes of the conversation. So, so you are officially the farthest away guest that we've had in the Loco experience as far as your primary home.

Todd:

Well, glad I could be the one furthest away.

Curt:

So you're up in Fort Collins here. I just learned that you had bought a house up here as well. And, uh, and you're up here because your daughter is playing soccer at CSU.

Todd:

Yeah, we recently bought a place. Uh, because of that, my daughter, uh, is a goalkeeper at, at Colorado State. She's a freshman. And in fact, she starts, uh, the game tomorrow. Uh, the spring season's starting up. Okay. She's excited and we're looking forward to watching her. And That's why we, we visited a few times. We had some campus visits and, uh, like, wow, like Fort Collins.

Curt:

Yeah.

Todd:

Uh, it's not the first place from Texas that I would think of where we want to have a place. You think of the mountain cabins and snow and all that. Right, right.

Curt:

Lake city. Yeah. Right. Everybody from Texas lives in Lake city. Yeah.

Todd:

But, uh, when you start, but we wanted a place to watch, um, Libby play soccer and then also, Uh, once you start diving into homeownership in the mountains, uh, you know, they don't talk about all the issues that come with, you know, frozen, frozen pipes and floods and all that and dealing with that. So, uh, we love it here. It's a great landing spot to, to go other places, but man, Fort Collins is just fantastic. Uh, yeah. Fell in love with the place already and, and through people like you, I'm hoping to learn a lot more.

Curt:

Well, it's a, you know, it's a, it's a great blessing for, um, You know, our community that people like you and your family, you know, choose to make it at least for, for now, a partial year home kind of back and forth a little bit. I suspect in the future you'll be, you know, collecting checks from your GS or whatever, CGA stock or whatever, spending it in our restaurants up here in Fort Collins, right?

Todd:

We, we do spend money in Fort Collins. That's for, that's for sure. Uh, and hope to be spending more, but you never know. I mean, uh, I come up here quite a bit and. I have engineers all the time say, Hey, if you ever want to open an office up in Colorado, I'll put up my hand.

Curt:

There you

Todd:

go. So it'd be easy to get people to come up here. That's, that's for sure.

Curt:

Yeah, for sure. So, um, what's that lifestyle look like for you? Do you guys come up for a couple of weeks at a time and just kind of work remotely and visit the Your daughter, uh, what's her name? Libby. Libby.

Todd:

Yeah, Libby Brooker. And, uh, yeah, uh, I'm working, like, this morning, it could have been the busiest morning I can recall, uh, that I've had in, in weeks, uh, just, you know, video call after video call just working on some projects, but, but yeah, I usually work, uh, while I'm up here. I've got an office in the house and, uh, but my wife and I, we try to sneak away when we can and go hiking. Uh, we, we had a nice hike yesterday up at Horsetooth and, um, you know, we, we, we're going to end up doing some rafting. We haven't done it here yet.

Curt:

Yeah. I think I'm going to start looking for a motorcycle for you too. Is that right?

Todd:

Yeah. Yeah. Uh, now that the kids are out of the house, uh, hopefully I can talk, uh, my wife into letting me get one, but I grew up as a kid back in Alabama, I grew up riding motorcycles and I loved it. Oh,

Curt:

well then you're prime for it.

Todd:

Yeah, well, but they were, I mean, I mean, I think I had an XR75 at one point and I rode some 150s, but I, you know, I, I, for some reason I've, I've been fairly conservative. You've got a healthy

Curt:

respect for the power of the modern motorcycle.

Todd:

I do. Um, I, I'm intimidated by it and I'm not sure that I would ever do it again, but. Um, but I used to love it. I used to love it, but that was just messing around. I've got two of

Curt:

them, so if you get a license, uh, we can ride sometime when you're up next time. Okay. Um, bring your wife, my wife will pop on the back of one too. Okay, I'll work on it. So, uh, we always jump in the time machine and go back to, whatever did I say, second grade? Second grade in Alabama still? Or were you in Alabama yet?

Todd:

Yes, I was born and raised in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Okay. Uh, home of the University of Alabama. Okay, cool. Uh, Central Alabama, uh, Birmingham's right in the middle, and it's a little bit west of Birmingham. Okay. Uh, it's, uh, where the University of Alabama campus is, and, um, was born and raised there. My dad ended up, uh, and my mom ended up living there after they went to school there at University of Alabama. Oh, okay. My dad played football at Alabama under Bear Bryant. And my mom was going to school, they met there and, um, you know, got married, had kids and stayed in the town, uh, that they loved. And so I, you know, I had a great childhood there. I just, I cherished growing up in Tuscaloosa.

Curt:

What, uh, you have, Several siblings. What were your folks in business and education?

Todd:

Yeah. Good question. I have one brother, Blake, uh, he's, he's a couple of years younger than me, but he's about, you know, six inches taller than me. Oh, so he got my dad, he got my dad's size. No, he didn't play football, but, uh, he played golf, uh, like I did. And, uh, and we dilly dallyed in different sports. Uh, but, um, you know, he, he got my dad's size, but by the time we played so much youth football, by the time, you know, it kind of got serious, We were kind of burnt out on it, you know, and, and, but we were playing golf the whole time and loved it. And we both got, got really good at golf, we were junior golfers and did that as a kid. But, um, you know, I had a, I had a fun childhood. You know, you asked about two year old Todd. Um, I grew up in this neighborhood called High Forest, uh, right off the Black Warrior River in Tuscaloosa. And, you know, it was one, it was just a great childhood neighborhood where the kids ride around on bicycles and they climb trees and you have pickup football games and you walk in the creeks and you get that bus. Mom sends you

Curt:

out at eight o'clock in the morning and you come home by dinnertime.

Todd:

Yeah, yeah, you know, the phones were dial up rotary, right, and, uh, every now and then your mom might call, you know, Susan and say, Hey, have you seen my son? He's sitting right here, I'm feeding him lunch. Yeah, as long as you came back by dark, you were fine,

Curt:

right? Right, right. Yeah, that's kind of the way I was raised, more of the free range style.

Todd:

Yeah, uh, it was like that and it was, it was awesome. And um, you know, I wish, I wish my girls had, you know, grown up like that. Uh, it, it seems that it's a little more protected environment now. Sure. Now, it, it is a little different, well maybe it is, it's a little

Curt:

different with girls versus boys. My, uh, my dad was just talking about that, uh, he had Easter over and, and, you know. Two of my stepsisters and my stepbrother have all had babies in the last little while, and one of them scolded, uh, dad's wife, their mom, about, oh, you gotta hold the head better, and whatever, and it's like, oh my god, just, like, it's a baby, like, I could drop it and it'd be fine, probably, but, uh, we'll figure it out. Like, don't be, don't be helicopterin over it, you know? But it's kind of the mentality, unfortunately, like, I don't know, where that, just that fear. There's a lot of fear of the world. Well, that

Todd:

drives, that drives the news, right? That drives social media and the news. Uh, you know, you don't hear about the grandma that crossed the street successfully, the one that got ran over. Right. And so, uh, unfortunately a lot of that, but yeah, so it, I remember my wife and I,

Curt:

I would ride my bike to school. Three miles from home, you know, and climb a tree 40 feet in the air when my mom would never even know.

Todd:

Yes, I did the same exact things. I, I, you know, I, yeah, I don't know how we're alive. There's so many, so many times I should have died falling out of a tree, crashing into a car, whatever, but, um, Could have died. Could have died. Could've died. Could've died. You're right. Could've died.

Curt:

Right. Because that's what the could've is what people think about today and that's not what you need to think about. And it definitely wasn't should've because you were

Todd:

careful. True. Yeah. I didn't

Curt:

know what he was around to pick me up off the ground if I fell out of the tree so I didn't fall.

Todd:

That's a great story. Next door to my house I grew up in is this massive pine tree and I love it and could get 40 feet up in the tree. And I got up there one time and I slipped. And I fell and I hit one branch on the way down, flipped over and landed on my back.

Curt:

Oh, so you should have died.

Todd:

And, and I laid there, but I landed in grass, but I hit hard and it knocked the breath out of me. And I just laid there and looked up at the sky. I was like, you know, that kind of thing. And I looked around and, and there's no one. There's no one there. My mom and dad are gone. I don't know where my brother is. There's nobody on the streets. Uh, and I laid there and I finally just got up and brushed, brushed it off. And I, it's like so many things could have gone wrong right there on the way down. You know, I could have landed on my head and, you know, but you know, I lived and learned. I was more careful going forward the rest of my life.

Curt:

I'm sure. Yeah, I was fair. Um, so tell me about young Todd. Were you, were Were you an athlete, uh, beyond golf? Uh, that was your main focus. It sounds like in some respects.

Todd:

Yeah. I, you know, I kind of grew up as a country club child. Our neighborhood was right next to a country club. And, and, uh, so I played a lot of golf and tennis, you know, a whole lot of golf and tennis. But while I was doing that, I was playing football. I would play a little bit of soccer. Um, and. Never was really into basketball, but I love basketball now. I mean, I love it. So, um, and, and I don't play as much golf anymore. Um, you know, raising, raising my girls, uh, with my wife, Elisa, we, you know,

Curt:

we. That's been the focus of the last 25 years. That's been our

Todd:

focus. Yeah. And, and they were very active girls and, you know, our last one, Libby, uh, she was, you know, a national level soccer player. And so every weekend for years, we were in another city. Flights and travel and all that. And so we were on this bullet train for the whole time. We're raising kids. And, and just recently we became empty nesters and, uh, with Libby here at, at Colorado state

Curt:

and

Todd:

it's like you step off of a bullet train and you're just, you're standing still and you're looking at each other. Like, what are we going to do now? And, uh, and it's, and it actually it's been fun. Uh, we, we're figuring it out and, um, uh, but some of it we filled in with some, we're doing a remodeling at our house in Austin and, uh, so, uh, but we, we're figuring it out. And. Yeah. I'm looking forward to it. I think I'm hoping I can talk her into getting on the golf course and us both playing some golf together. Uh, things like that, but we're going to do a little more travel for ourselves, uh, and, uh, and, and go see some places.

Curt:

How did Libby land in Fort Collins? A big scholarship? Was she shopped at other universities and things? She wanted to be in Colorado?

Todd:

Yeah. Uh, so yeah, we were on that bullet train of, of recruiting and, and trying to get a scholarship, uh, as she was playing soccer and, and I was, I was, I was her social media person and, and I was, and for the team and I'm sending out, it just, it's funny that me, I'm doing that, but I w I was doing it and, uh, she, you know, she continued to get better and continued to fight through injuries and stress and the struggles of, of high level athletes. It's, it's, it's not easy. No joke. Yeah. There's so many times when. She could have quit and we would have said, Hey, that's fine. This is your choice. And, you know, together as a team, we powered through it, you know, through doctor visits, through therapy, through just, uh, you know, just trying to be there for her, uh, because we didn't want to be those pushy parents that, you know, pushed her into something she didn't want to

Curt:

support you and everything you want to do and not push you into anything you don't,

Todd:

right. And, uh, COVID came along her sophomore year of high school. Almost, you know, ruined everything. Uh, COVID was tough on Libby, uh, as it is on a lot of, a lot of kids. Some kids thrived educationally and, uh, socially during that time, but others didn't. And, um, but Libby had soccer to fall back on. Her high school team meant so much to her and that team went to the state championship in Texas for division, for division six, which is the biggest high schools.

Curt:

Oh, wow.

Todd:

So. Her team and she was the starting keeper of the whole season. So she, that right there, I think was huge in helping her navigate through COVID, uh, in, in that it just, cause COVID was so tough, tough on people as far as emotionally. And, um, you know, Libby was a social butterfly and to not have that, uh, the way it was, was, was tough, tough on everyone. Uh, not just her, but, um, so that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that,

Curt:

Brought her level of visibility up a little bit. It

Todd:

did. That helped. And she was doing really good in club soccer. And then the next two years, they did really well in high school as well. And, uh, meanwhile, we're trying to get noticed by colleges and we're going to camps and we're going to, uh, different showcases with our team and all that was going fine and she had a few target schools in mind, but, uh, Colorado state was not one of them. But what happened though, is Colorado state cleared out the coaching staff that. you know, soccer coaching staff. They hired Keely Hagen from the university of Texas. She was the assistant head coach. They brought her as the head coach and then Keely Hagen hired Libby's high school coach, Vandegriff high school, Cherish LaChapelle. So these two ladies from Austin, who know Libby, came up here and so it just fell into

Curt:

place. And they said, our goalkeeper is okay. She's a senior though. What's Libby doing?

Todd:

Well, at the time they had three other keepers.

Curt:

Oh wow.

Todd:

But you're always looking down the road. So they were looking down the road. They made her an early offer. And And we could have held out and, and waiting on other

Curt:

offers,

Todd:

uh, goalkeepers tend to get early offers cause there's, there's only one on the field at a time, you know, at 10 other girls, uh, field players, but, um, we didn't want to wait, uh, we were all exhausted from the process, but it was the right. thing for her. And as parents were like, Oh my God, this is, this makes us feel good. These two people we trust.

Curt:

Yeah. Yeah.

Todd:

And, and they're, they're female. They're from Austin. They know Libby. They're going to be good for her. And, and Libby, Libby's leaving Texas and going to Colorado out of state. Right. It all. And, and, and well, in

Curt:

your likelihood of getting a second home in Alabama, if she went to Tuscaloosa is probably lesser than a Fort Collins place.

Todd:

Yeah.

Curt:

Yeah. No offense, Alabama. That

Todd:

was an option. That was an option. We were looking at that, but, uh, It was a long shot.

Curt:

Um, I mean, that's a big program. I'm sure in comparison,

Todd:

uh, they're both D one, but Alabama has a very good soccer program, but, but it didn't matter. We visited the campus, fell in love with Colorado state campus, fell in love with Fort Collins, the coaches, and they gave her a nice scholarship and it was just. A match made in heaven and here, uh, nine months later, since, since you started school, don't regret a bit of it. It's just been a wonderful experience for her.

Curt:

What a neat thing. Oh, I just realized I didn't offer before we started, but I do keep a joint handy in case of 420 opportunities required. I didn't anticipate you probably would, but, uh, but you're in Colorado now. So just like Elon Musk when he was, uh, on Rogan, you could. That's legal.

Todd:

Technically I could. I'm going to, I'm going to pass. Okay. But I'm not offended, and you can No, I'm not going to spoil it. Okay. That

Curt:

one's been there for six weeks. Oh, okay. It's just always ready. Um, I was going to kind of fly through, like, how did you get into the petroleum engineering? You did the high school thing, probably had pretty good grades and stuff. Did you know what you wanted to do? I assume it's kind of an intensive, uh Are you a petroleum engineer or mechanical engineer, or what's your special sauce?

Todd:

Good question. I am a petroleum engineer from the University of Texas in Austin.

Curt:

Okay.

Todd:

Um I got to Texas because my parents divorced in Alabama back when I was around 11 years old, 12 years old. Oh, okay. And at 15, my mom decided she wanted to move to Dallas, uh, live with her sister and start a child psychology practice.

Curt:

Oh, wow.

Todd:

Okay. And she did. And, and she goes, you guys, it's, you know, Todd and Blake, it's up to you if you want to stay or go. And I, I was like, I'm ready to leave Tuscaloosa. And, um, you know, I, I wanted to change. Uh, you know, I was my sophomore year of high school and, and, uh, Uh, I just was intrigued by Dallas, you know, the, the show Dallas had been on during my life, Dallas Cowboys. My dad played for the Dallas Texans in pro ball and they became the Kansas City Chiefs and he played for the Chiefs. So Dallas was, was, you know, the place for me. And so I left before my mom did. I wanted to get into high school quickly. So I moved out there and my brother came. And so I ended up in Texas and just through, uh, just knowing some they recommended University of Texas and I visited. Uh, at that point, it was clear that I was a little better at math than I was at English. Uh, uh, I love science. I love, um, I do like, I do a lot of writing now, uh, but it's more technical writing. Yeah. Uh, but it was the typical, hey, you're good in math and go be an engineer. Right. That's really what it was. Uh, I don't have any petroleum in the, or hydrocarbon in the background, no, no oil and gas industry in my background family at all. I didn't know anything about oil and gas drilling. Uh, I knew, I knew very little about it. So, uh, I went to UT to study engineering and petroleum. They said they had the biggest salaries and I found out they had the most scholarships available. And I gave it a try and I made it through the first semester, the first year. And, uh, and then they gave me another scholarship just cause my grades were decent. And then I made it through another year and they gave me another scholarship and they were layering them on and. What was happening is the oil and gas industry was tanking

Curt:

and

Todd:

students were jettisoning out of the program. So I started with 110 entering my class and 11 graduated. Oh, wow. 10 percent basically graduated. Wow. And, uh, most of that was because their parents said, you're in a dead industry. Go to business school. Wow. Or, or some of them failed out. It was very, very difficult. Sure. I will say it's To this day, I'm surprised I made it through, but, uh, but, but I did. And thank goodness I did. And by the time I came out, prices had come back just a little bit

Curt:

and

Todd:

everybody got multiple offers. And so I just got lucky. The timing was just complete luck. The two classes before me, they did, there was no offers. It was really tough,

Curt:

interesting,

Todd:

or very few offers, I should say. So, um, that's why I went to UT and, uh, and studied petroleum engineering and, and, uh, luckily. Out of all the offers I got, I got one from Chevron, uh, and they were the only company out of all our offers that said I could go into drilling.

Curt:

Okay.

Todd:

And, uh, at school, I didn't get much, uh, training or, or education on drilling. I learned about how to produce wells. I learned about the reservoir. I learned about geology, but it was very little that they had in the curriculum for drilling. And so Chevron said, Hey, we've got a spot for you in New Orleans. Yep. Would you want to come? I'm like, New Orleans? Heck yeah. And plus

Curt:

drilling is kind of the gap in your game at the time. It was the

Todd:

gap. And, uh, I'm so glad I did it because it, it gave me an insight to the industry where, where it matters most. I mean, if you can't, if you can't drill a good well or manage a good well or, or repair a good well, uh, then you're not going to have business. Production and you're not going to have a company. And so it was, it was really good to see that part of it because now as an engineer sitting behind my desk, just pushing electrons around every morning, uh, I'm looking at data and I can think about, oh, why is this data telling me? What is it telling me? And I can think back about, about that wellbore and what could be going on down hole. Right. So that was, that was super cool. The other super cool thing is, um, My first two years there, I was working a week on and a week off. So I would go out to the rigs and they would fly the company, company man out to the rigs. We would do our work. We'd come back. And then I had a week off and you know, right out of college. And that was very nice because I could go play golf. I could exercise. I could travel, go see my, my girlfriend, which is my wife. Um,

Curt:

and you find her in college, I guess, in college. Yeah, we

Todd:

met, we met at university of Texas. And, uh, and then after she graduated a year after me, uh, She, she joined me in New Orleans and we got engaged and, and then we got married in 93.

Curt:

Okay. Um, how did, I mean, so you were only a few years into your career, really, when you got into the Collie Gillespie firm, huh? Yeah, it was under

Todd:

four years. I was at Chevron and, um, oddly enough, uh, It doesn't make sense that they found me and that I'm still here. But the president of Colley Gillespie at the time contacted a professor at the university of Texas, uh, Dr. Larry Lake, he's a legend and, and oil and gas, uh, you know, research and said, Hey, I, I need, I need a young engineer, a go getter, and I need somebody, you know, I need a machine.

Curt:

Yeah.

Todd:

And, um, Larry Lake gave him my name and I didn't know that he didn't professor knew me,

Curt:

right.

Todd:

I have to admit, I was, I was. I wore flip flops, shorts, tank tops, and I had blonde hair in college. And I would go to class like that. And I, I just embarrassed thinking back about it, but this, this nice man, uh, who, who was, he was probably my single toughest course as well. He taught reservoir engineering and it was tough. Uh, he, he was a good teacher, but, but tough and gave him a name. I flew to Fort Worth, interviewed. And, uh, they said, you know, Todd, with you, there's the good, the bad and the ugly. And, you know, the good is everybody liked you on your interview. I'm like, okay, great. The bad is that you have, um, that, that you don't have much reservoir engineering experience and our firm does reservoir engineering. And I'm like, yeah, he goes, but we think you can learn that you've got enough of the basics. We'll teach you what you need. I'm like, okay. And I said, what's the ugly? He goes, well, you own a house in new Orleans. And And I just don't think you're going to be able to sell it and you're going to be underwater on it. And, and that's going to, you're going to be,

Curt:

keep you there. And so here, or,

Todd:

or I'm going to take a bath on it if I move. And I'm like, that's the ugly. I said, don't worry about that. I can, I can, I'm fine. And we struck a deal. And I, and to be honest, we had, we had our fun in new Orleans. We had, you know, three or four years there that was enough. You know, if you've been to New York city or you've been to Vegas and you have your fun. You know when it's time to get out, right? Yeah, I like

Curt:

to say I spent a month in L. A. one week. Because I don't really want to be there, you know. A week was enough. Felt like a month.

Todd:

Yeah, well we had several years and, uh, and loved it. Loved New Orleans, loved the people there. Just, just the salt of the earth and, and just had such great experiences. Yeah. No regrets at all and Chevron was good to me.

Curt:

Got married, fell in love with this woman. You want to make some babies and New Orleans isn't too far away. Maybe the place where you don't want to do that.

Todd:

Didn't think of it that way at the time, but yeah, we wanted to get back to Texas. Her family was there. My mom was there and, uh, and my brother was there. So it made a lot of sense.

Curt:

So any major highlights? I mean, you're just kind of a grinder made partner have for how many years?

Todd:

Yeah, it took, uh, six or seven years. I don't remember exactly. Um, But I worked very hard to become a partner. I, again, I mentioned Zane Meekins before I, they hired me to be him. Uh, I, they, they basically told me that we just want a clone of Zane Meekins. And he's like five years your senior or something like that. He's three years my senior, but he was valedictorian of his class at Texas A& M and, and those, and it was, and he was billing, uh, more hours than anybody had at the firm ever. And so I'm like, Oh man, tough to follow.

Curt:

Right.

Todd:

But, you know, I found out that There's plenty of work and I, I didn't have to be him. Um, and there's ways I can be different than him. Right. Um, you know, I wasn't, you know, I, I felt like I'm not going to be smarter than him. I'm probably not going to outwork him, but there's other things that I can do differently that might, might help me become a partner. And that was, you know, things like just making the clients happy, uh, you know, meeting deadlines, doing some business development and maybe growing the client base with my boss, seeing this, you know, and so I did those kinds of things. And I started to be able to figure out. How do I kind of make it rain here? It took time.

Curt:

Yeah. Yeah.

Todd:

But you know, I, and

Curt:

in the end, that was a big part of it though, is you brought in more business, you brought in more business that you could do, which allows them to have other folks to do some of that work. And that's a good thing too.

Todd:

Yes. Uh, that did happen. And, uh, you know, I kind of grew into it. The funny thing about our firm is it's mostly engineers and geologists and none of us have a, have any business running a business. You know, it's like, well, nobody does. Yeah. Most of us don't have MBAs.

Curt:

Like 99 percent of. Business owners are not MBAs in the world. So

Todd:

it's a great point, but, um, I would say engineers are even more challenged on certain things. But, uh, you know, we are pretty conservative,

Curt:

but, um, but anyway, spreadsheets though, so that's nice. We

Todd:

are good with spreadsheets. Uh, it does pay the bills, but, uh, so. I made Partner after working very hard doing that and, and, uh, I was very happy with it, but it didn't really change anything. Um, you know, sometimes you can just work so hard for a goal and you get there. And you're like, what's next? And our firm's so flat that there really wasn't an X. I was never thinking about becoming president or that was my goal. You know, I was there because I enjoyed the environment, love the oil and gas industry. Uh, I love working with clients. Uh, I, I like project flow. I like seeing different things and, and I like the team collaboration. So it was just, and I still love it today. I'm, I'm, I've been there that long and I've had so many opportunities to go elsewhere. But, uh, you know, I'm a little conservative when it comes to that. I'm not like you, I've talked to you, you impressed the heck out of me. The number of risks that you've taken over the last decade or two in, you know, changing careers and, and, and, and doing things way outside the box. Uh, you're not, you're not just, you're not just

Curt:

children. That's part of my, you know, it's a

Todd:

great point. Yeah. You know, stability or certainly a factor. Yeah. Stability to keep the family, uh, you know, happy and intact is, is And, and that, that drove a lot of my decisions, to be honest with you, do I want to move from Austin to Houston and, you know, the Mecca of oil and gas, do I really want to move there for an extra whatever? No. Uh, you know, and so I had opportunities to do that and, you know, usually my wife and I would make a pro con list and I encourage anybody to do that. Don't just blindly make the decision, but write down all the pros, write down all the cons, maybe wait. Just like an engineer, I put it in a spreadsheet, I weighted each one. Right, right. And then I ranked it one to five and then I did the math and I'm like, well, honey, the math shows that

Curt:

we stay.

Todd:

Uh, yeah, but there's opportunities looking back that I passed up and I could, I maybe I could have made a fortune. Maybe I could have retired by now, but, uh, I. Colleague Gillespie has taken very good care of me, and I'm doing my best to take good care of it. I want to hand it off to the next round of partners, and, you know, maybe within the next decade I'll be done.

Curt:

That's what I was going to go to, you know, how long do you want to be there?

Todd:

I don't have a set, you know, set. I like it that much. More than five

Curt:

years.

Todd:

Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I want to be there more than five years, but I'm not opposed to, um, you know, taking a step back and doing things part time and let somebody else come in and be president, you know, maybe somebody is going to step up and be, you clearly be the one and, and I'm fine with that. Um, do you think

Curt:

that person is on your, in your firm right now?

Todd:

Yeah. There's one or two that are, that are That I think are special. They could

Curt:

do it.

Todd:

Oh yeah. Yeah. They'll definitely do it if they want to.

Curt:

Right. Right.

Todd:

The problem nowadays is people get poached. Right. Somebody

Curt:

might pay them. 40 grand a year more just to come for their firm in Houston.

Todd:

Yeah. The reason they're successful with us is because their clients love them. And those clients, every one of those clients is a potential, you know, a suitor, so, um, you know, but I, I, with most of the oil and gas companies, they They tend to leave us alone. We don't get poached too often. And, uh, and I will say with all the consolidation that's happening, you know, when Exxon says they buy Pioneer and you put those two companies together, every employee doesn't go with Exxon, there's a lot that go away. They, they got to, you know, it's, it's about saving expenses on

Curt:

GNA. There's a lot more open, free agents out there. There's a lot of free

Todd:

agents out there. So, um, so I'm comfortable with, with where we're at, but, uh, on, on our staff and the people that are there and I'm, I'm hoping they stay because, you know, I will say one thing I thought about before this, this podcast with you is that, uh, sometimes perseverance is. you know, uh, is the, the answer to why is this person successful?

Curt:

Yeah.

Todd:

Sometimes they're smart. Sometimes they're lucky, whatever it is, but, but perseverance in a lot of cases pays off. And, and that, for me, that's what it was. I just stuck around and other people left and I, I kept, refining and improving and

Curt:

yeah,

Todd:

and when you, sometimes you look around, you're the oldest person in the room all of a sudden, you know, when you were the youngest,

Curt:

I used to be the young guy. No, I'm not that anymore.

Todd:

Yeah. And, and yeah, exactly. And, you know, like just, we talked about Libya a minute ago, her perseverance through COVID and through all the struggles of being a, an athlete at that level, and then, and then making a division one soccer or, or, Any, any division soccer, uh, you know, it's a grind to get there. You know, my dad, I said, he played football for Bear Bryant at Alabama. He was an all American and the stuff he did to make that happen. And so I think I got some of that from him. And, um, you know, he was, he was tough. He was a disciplinarian and, uh, thank goodness. My mom was a softie. She, she was a child psychologist and she was just. So beautiful and she's still alive. She's, she's in Dallas, um, in assisted living. She's got dementia, unfortunately, but she's, she's happy and, uh, and, and, you know, living out her life. My dad passed away, you know, right before COVID back in, in 19. And, um, you know, he, they both have had great lives and, and, you know, I feel like they raised some good sons.

Curt:

Let's pivot to that now, actually, the closing segments, faith, family, politics. You want to start with family since you're kind of drifting there already?

Todd:

Yeah, what, what, what kind of part? Uh, well one

Curt:

game we always, uh, do is play one word description for each of your children. Okay. So, uh, I know you've got three girls, right? Yeah. Uh, do you want to start with the eldest, give her a name, maybe an age and a one word description?

Todd:

Yeah, Jordan is, is, uh,

Curt:

Oh, happy birthday, Jordan.

Todd:

Happy birthday, Jordan. And, uh, she is beautifully eclectic.

Curt:

With a hyphen.

Todd:

Yes. Okay. Yeah. Get two words there. Beautifully eclectic. Uh, very unique. She's an artist. Uh, Kylie is, uh, my middle daughter. She's 24. I hope I'm not messing that up. Her birthday's coming up as well. And, uh, she is, uh, How do I describe her? She is stylishly funky. Oh. Okay, two words again. Okay, we'll, we'll stretch the rules for you Texans. I can't, I can't, yeah, I can't, I can't put them in one box. Libby, uh, Libby is, uh, like I said, she's eight, uh, no, uh, wait. She's

Curt:

19 now maybe?

Todd:

No, her birthday's on the 4th of July, and we named her Libby, kind of Liberty. Yeah, yeah. Uh, and, uh, she's 18, and, you know, she, again, she plays soccer, but, uh, Libby is, I'm going to say she's a rock. She's just, I get teared thinking about her. She's just awesome in every way. That's cool. Yeah. Yeah. Um, who's this woman that you met in college and married up full name is Elizabeth, but she goes by Lisa and uh, we met in college on the school bus that took us from our apartment all the way down to campus. Okay. And, uh, she asked to read my newspaper and, uh, and we met there briefly, but, uh, we did rendezvous one other time, like, uh, at a, on a dance floor, uh, in, you know, downtown Austin. Okay. On 6th Street, uh, prior to that. And, uh, I remember dancing with her friend. And, uh, which was interesting, but long story short, we just kind of picked up a relationship and we went jogging together and next thing you know, we're hanging out and it blossomed into a, you know, a full relationship. I think she was a little leery of me again. Uh, I was all about getting tan. I had blonde hair. I was wearing flip flops and tank tops. I was working out, you know, I can see right.

Curt:

Bro culture guy. Yeah. Before. Well,

Todd:

I was never afraid of anything. I was never a bro culture, but I looked at it and she looked at me with a skeptical eye and, and I don't blame her. I was also a little bit of a smart ass. Uh, you know, I, I was always a little cocky and, you know, I wish, I wish looking back, I knew how cocky I was and I'd take some of that back, but, but again, she persevered. She stuck it out with me and I've been, I've been hell along the way too. It didn't, we, we're coming up with

Curt:

just an easy transition.

Todd:

No, no. So, uh, you know, we made it to 30 years. And it was, thank you. Thank you. That was, that was a huge, huge moment for us because there's been a lot ups and downs, uh, in, you know, in, in, uh, raising our kids and, and having a relationship,

Curt:

you know,

Todd:

because you, you put a lot of things on hold. where your relationship with your, your spouse should be the number one thing. Right. And, but you put a lot of things, you put that on hold. Especially

Curt:

when you got kids chasing athletics at elite level and all these things pretty soon, that's the focus of the parents.

Todd:

Yeah, exactly. And, uh, so the good thing about age comes wisdom and we also are now are empty nesters and we've been working for years on, on trying to find the, you know, making sure the relationship is the, is the, You know, proper focus and, um, and we've, we're doing a much better job of that over the last decade. And, and I'm hoping we keep it going.

Curt:

As a child psychologist, what would she say is your most, uh, annoying tendency or childhood tendency?

Todd:

Oh man. I've got a lot of them. Um, because I'm an engineer, I try to fix every problem, Kurt. And I can't help myself. You know, she's hot. I've got a reason to, I got a way she can get cold.

Curt:

Yeah. Uh, have you seen the nail in the head thing?

Todd:

No.

Curt:

There's a, it's probably 10 years old now, but there's a girl that's like literally got a nail sticking out of her forehead. And her husband's like, well, you've got a nail. I don't need you to fix it. I just need you to listen to me. I've got this just sharp pain in my head. Well, yeah, it's cause you got it now. Don't fix it for me. Anyway, Google it sometime with your wife. You'll probably find it very humorous.

Todd:

That exact conversation has happened many times. Uh, and. And I've learned from her and from my daughters, it's, it's sometimes it's just about sitting with them and listening and not trying to, you know, fix anything. And I will say most of my life I've been guilty of, you know, as you're talking to somebody and you're listening to them, but you're really not listening. You're thinking about how am I going to respond to them? I've already got my answer before you finish speaking. Sure. And I did that for so long and I'm trying to slow down and just focus in and listen more and, uh, and talk less. Although today I'm talking a lot, I know that, but, um, yeah, I'd, I'd recommend that to anyone. If you can just listen more and talk less, you'll be better off.

Curt:

Well, and be intentional. Sounds like you guys have been looking forward to this time, even of being empty nesters and intentionally worked on your relationship. Yeah, in the lead up. Yes. I've seen a lot of relationships go south after that empty that nest empties and they're like, oh Actually, it turns out you annoy me when it's just me Yeah, usually that's the wife. Um,

Todd:

you know because we've been so busy on all the other stuff. We're right, right You know, we're, we're not annoyed with each other. I guess we're falling back in love again. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's, that's the objective. Exactly.

Curt:

I like it. Uh, that seems like a good transition. Make the turn to politics, uh, COVID nation certainly affected your industry and you weathered through, but, uh, is there any learnings about how our world works, uh, that you've uncovered in that time? Uh, during the COVID time, especially during the COVID time. I think that's where the, the man behind the machine was a little bit exposed. Uh,

Todd:

yeah, that's interesting. Well, we could open up a Pandora's box in this conversation. I know. Um, uh, I will say this. I, I try to do my best to look at news. That's balanced, you know, that, uh, I, I try to check my sources and, you know, if I'm on Fox or if I'm on CNN or MSNBC or whatever it is, I'm, I'm Leary, I'm listening to it with, with skeptical, uh, skepticism, I should say, uh, uh, it's hard to do that these days and, and knowing what's good and what's not, I mean, here. I. Artificial intelligence alone,

Curt:

right.

Todd:

Uh, is changing, uh, what we're seeing, you know, the pictures and the all Totally, yeah. And, and, uh, I, well, and bought

Curt:

comments on different feeds and different things. You never know what's actually true.

Todd:

Yeah, that's true. And I, and, and I, I feel for the youth of today, right. First of all, uh, you know, I used to worry about plagiarizing in college, you know, and, and, and my papers and, and making sure I was, I didn't plagiarize. Right? Right. But, but now, I mean, uh, AI write, I mean chat, GPT and other things like that writes papers for you. And now. The teachers have their methods, right? They can figure it out, but, um, you know, that, that concerns me for this younger generation and that they, they may not have to think as critically. Right, and so many, everything becomes a black box. Well, it feels like

Curt:

building a foundation kind of on shifting sands. It's, if there isn't really known, knowns about knowledge stuff that we actually know because we discovered it, that we did math ourselves before we got a calculator, it seems hard to build on.

Todd:

Yeah, it is. Um, so, but you know, on the flip side, you could look at like, that is a whole new industry that's blossoming and it's just getting started. And maybe that's what our kids are going to be doing in the next 30, 40 years. Uh, you know, I don't know, um, you know, where that's going to go, but.

Curt:

How's, uh, the Texas is in the news a lot just lately on the immigration front. Um, is that make its way into Austin? Is that far enough away that it doesn't really affect you too much?

Todd:

Well, it impacts everyone. I mean, certainly impacting, you know, down, you know, south at the border. Uh, that's what's going on down there is challenging. And, you know, in, in, in oil and gas, a lot of that, that property down there is oil and gas heavy and the landowners down there have massive tracts of land and, and they have. We've had a lot of issues with immigrants coming across and it's very dangerous whether you know, a lot of immigrants just want food and water. Right. Right. And, and maybe they're there because somebody got them there and they shouldn't be there or then there's the other ones that are maybe running drugs that, that, you know It could be, uh, gangs, criminals, stuff like

Curt:

remote rig, and 20 immigrants comes up looking for some sandwiches. Like, it's a pretty scary scene.

Todd:

It could be, because you don't know what to expect. But, um, but it, but yeah, it's impacted all cities in Texas. But, um, but certainly down closer to the border, those cities are, are being inundated. Uh, but they're impacting lots of cities across the nation, as you know. Right, right. Yeah, Denver's,

Curt:

like, We're screaming here. We can't handle it.

Todd:

Yeah, a lot of cities are screaming, uh, uh, because from what I understand based on the numbers there's millions that have come across and, and, uh, I, I don't know that that's sustainable. Uh, but you know, I can't. Well

Curt:

not if you're going to feed them and let them vote. Yeah, I mean

Todd:

that's another issue. Uh, you know, I, I believe in immigration for sure. Yeah. And I, you know, I, the ironic thing is that legal immigration, is much more difficult. It takes much longer than it is for illegal immigration. But, you know, that's what we have. I'm not a politician. I don't make those rules. I do live in a state that's on the border and I am concerned about it. Um, but, you know, I'm, I'm hoping, you know, I do think Closed borders or secured borders are important to any nation, uh, for lots of reasons, uh, because you're not a nation unless you have a border. But, uh, but, you know, we're not the only country that's dealing with that. That's happening all over the world and, uh, it's certainly something that's going to have to be addressed. Yeah, yeah.

Curt:

Well, if we could get more energy into some of these nations that people are leaving, uh, Maybe they'll stay, maybe not Venezuela. They got a lot of energy already.

Todd:

I mean, the U S is such an attractive location for anyone. I mean, it is, it is the home of opportunity and, uh, and, and I, I really can't blame anyone wanting to immigrate here, uh, because there are, there are people who want to immigrate. Lots and lots of jobs, lots of ways to make money and, you know, that, that aren't illegal. I mean, as far as like criminality, uh, but there's, there's plenty of, plenty of jobs to be filled. There's, there's, uh, for, uh, for immigration and, you know, some hoping that they can get it under control, but still figure out a way to have immigration where it's, it's actually, we know who's

Curt:

coming in. Well, it could be very selective. That's what I mean. Like we could make people pay us instead of paying the cartels to come. I

Todd:

don't know. Yeah. Paying to get in. I understand. But I do think No, I'm not literally saying that. But

Curt:

honestly, like, we could be very selective and take two million of the very best, smartest, even some of them would bring wealth, uh, to our country instead of just completely not educated and no money. Yeah. And just pay the cartel. Like, I'd rather, I'd literally, like, it's almost as wasted to have them pay our government, but At least it's not the cartel.

Todd:

Yeah, it's true. That is one solution, Kurt. But that's your solution. I do would, I would like secure borders. Absolutely. And, but I still would like a way for people to be able to immigrate here. For sure. But, but knowing who's coming in and everybody. paying their fair share, you know, over time, you know, because you and I and others pay a lot of taxes. And, uh, I think if you're earning income in the United States, uh, enough income that, you know, you should, you should,

Curt:

you know, I haven't really thought about this way, but I think it's supposed to be somewhere like 8 million, uh, illegals. over the last three years or whatever, even at 10 bucks a piece, uh, that would be 80 million. So you could build a wall pretty quickly if you just taxed a little bit. Anyway, I'm digressing. Um, and we're not going to solve it. I do have to wrap up because I'm shooting bow and arrows with some friends this evening. Um, I am. Yeah, it's been a little while. It's a nice evening to do that before I let you get off the politics segment. Uh, who do you like in November?

Todd:

Well, I don't know, uh, I will say, I'm, I'm a little leery that the election will go off as planned.

Curt:

Yeah, yeah. Uh, uh. I think it's highly unlikely that it's Trump v. Biden in November.

Todd:

Yeah, I, I don't know what's gonna go down, um, I've.

Curt:

Oh, you're thinking like riots or something more crazy. Oh, I don't know. World War III.

Todd:

I, I don't know, um, well, there's a lot of bad things going on in the world right now. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, with what's going on in Iran this week. Trump's

Curt:

announced that, uh, Ukraine is gonna be a part of NATO soon. That's why your oil prices are going up today. If you didn't notice.

Todd:

Yeah. Yeah. Um, there's a lot of, a lot of things going around in the world that are unrest, but you know, so what's going to happen here? That's a real good question. Um, you know, our, our political system is set up such that it's not, you know, just the popular vote, right. Uh, that wins elections. Uh, so, uh, you got the electoral college you have to go through. And so, uh, you, you've got to earn your delegates. And so it's the swing States that'll make the difference again, just like before. Yeah. And, um, I really don't know what to expect from those swing states, Kurt. Um, what do you expect from those swing states?

Curt:

Um, you know, I think Trump's, if Trump doesn't get, Killed or put in prison before November. I think he's got it with, with the RFK effect, pulling 10, 12, 15%, twice as many Democrats as Republicans and Biden being so obviously mentally compromised, uh, I just don't see how the electoral college could go another way. Yeah. Um, cause I don't think Kennedy's got enough horseradish to actually get delegates. Um, it would change the math. You know, if he could get up into 20 percent and get some delegates in some places, that would change the math a lot. Yeah. Um, but probably if he survives through to November, uh, Trump will be

Todd:

Well, we got six months till we find that out. And a lot of things can happen during that time. Um, I just like predicting oil and gas prices. I've given up predicting elections in America or anywhere. Uh, so, uh, I'm not going to answer that, but, uh, I think it'll end up being closer than anyone, you know, thought, but I don't know which way it'll go.

Curt:

Yeah. Yeah. All depends. Uh, by the way, you know what little old ladies tastes like? Depends. Nice. So let's go, let's hit your loco experience, Todd. What's that craziest experience of your lifetime that you're willing to share? Maybe you shared falling out of a tree from 40 feet high. That was pretty crazy.

Todd:

I did. I will say I thought about this. It actually was here in Colorado, uh, back six, seven, eight years ago. Oh, longer than that. I think Libby was about four or five. Uh, we went river rafting down in Buena Vista with river runners. And we went there expecting a class one to two. And that evening they opened the floodgates and by the time we got there, it was rolling over 4, 000 and it was, it was just, it was crazy. Now, we could see that, but being novices, we didn't know. Right. I'm trusting you guys. And they said, no, no, no, we can, we can do this. And, uh, and we did, it was a fantastic, uh, raft ride. And then we got to a point called the toilet bowl. Okay. I think it's also called, uh. I think it's famous. Yeah. It's also called the suckle. And what you do is you pull off to the side and you go up on this cliff and you look down and you watch people go past it. And it's this, you know, this swirling vortex in the middle of the river and you have to push hard left. Okay. And everybody has to push hard left and you got to be a foot from the wall on the left, otherwise it sucks you in. And so left, left, left. So we did that. And, and, uh, now Libby, I wish I can remember, let's just say she's five and my other daughters are there, my wife's there and, and it's the, uh, five,

Curt:

nine and 12 or something like that. Whatever. We

Todd:

got her feet locked in a little bit, but, uh, so we, we, we hit it and we're just paddling hard, paddling hard as we can. And we missed it by about a foot. And it sucked us right in, in there. And as soon as it spun us like that, it shot me, Libby, and Jordan off. Oh boy. And we're going down the river. But you're clear of the sucker at least. We're clear. My wife and Kylie and the guide are stuck in there and the raft's up like this.

Curt:

Oh boy.

Todd:

And you can see, see them up high and, and, and then they were spun down in it. Right. Meanwhile. Uh, Jordan, I'm lo I I see my my girls in the water there, and we're just rushing down the summer. Right. Calling S. And I see Jordan go get Libby and Libby, she's wearing, she must be two feet out of the water because this, she's so tiny and this, this vest was so, and so she was fine. And, uh, and I'm looking around for paddles. I'm like trying, just being the engineer, I got to get the paddles. Anyway, we, we ended up going downstream and, and there was a spot to stop, not a safe place. Meanwhile, they bust loose out of the, you know, out of the vortex there. Okay. And they come, they come down the river and. I can, I can already feel my wife's icy stare. But we were all soaking wet and I, it was cold. I mean, this is June, like June 6th. Right, right. That water was snow, not very long ago. And, and they, they pull up there and we're all there, all of us together and, you know, my wife's eyes, the guide's eyes were just like, I think he was embarrassed because he was the guy that, you know, put people in the water and the other guides are looking at him like, you're a loser. And, and he didn't make eye contact the rest of the trip. I think he was embarrassed or mad or because we didn't pull hard enough.

Curt:

Right.

Todd:

But my wife was just so, so angry at that point and scared. And obviously, I mean, we were in the water. I mean, her loved ones are in the water. And the funny thing is that the three of us that were in the water, we went up streets. It was like the most exhilarating thing of our lives, but we weren't stuck in that dang vortex, possibly drowning and all that. So it was two different perspectives. And, uh, but we ended up having to finish that trip out to get further downstream to meet the bus. And, and she didn't really want to do it, but we did. It was pretty easy the rest of the way. And, you know, it was the conversation on the bus ride back. It was like, part of it's like, that was the greatest thing we ever did. And it was clear we were never going to go do it again as a family. And we didn't, uh, but we probably would. But, you know, when, when it goes from, you know, less than a thousand cubic feet per minute to 4, 000, just come back another day, you know, is my recommendation. But anyway, long story there, but that, that was a, well, I can just

Curt:

imagine like, Floating down this stream and you're watching your family members like twisting around in this raft wondering You know, where does the vortex go to on the bottom, right?

Todd:

Yeah. And, and what, you know, in those moments where you're just scared to death, your, your adrenaline kicks in, you know, again, we're flowing in a, in a, on a river going really fast. Your adrenaline kicks in and you're, you don't think like you would normally. And, you know, first we're thinking about making sure we're all safe and then like, we can't do anything about them. That guide's got them. And luckily he did his thing. He knew how to get out of that and it worked out. And. Uh, that's why you pay professionals and don't, people don't do this at home by yourself. For

Curt:

sure.

Todd:

Yeah. Yeah. It was a great moment, but it was also a learning, learning lesson.

Curt:

Yeah. Yeah. Respect the river. Respect that river. Yes, sir. For sure. Well, um, if anybody needs their oil wells valued, uh, should they just find you on the LinkedIn? Is that the best way? You can

Todd:

find Todd Brooker on LinkedIn. Uh, you can look up Collie Gillespie at www. cgus. com. Um, and, um. I would love to help. And I can't thank you enough, Kurt. It's been nice hanging out with you. Thanks for sharing

Curt:

a bunch of, uh, good back behind the curtain knowledge about the oil industry.

Todd:

I'm glad to do it. And you took me a few places I don't normally go on talking. So hopefully I didn't offend anyone, but, uh,

Curt:

I'll let you do that. I'm disappointed that you didn't actually see you next time, Todd. Take care.

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