Everette Lee DeGolyer

Recognized by his peers as "the father of applied geophysics," Everette Lee DeGolyer was a daring and resourceful scientist who possessed a practical, vivid, inquisitive intelligence. He was accorded honors also bestowed upon such scientific giants as Kelvin, Edison, Westinghouse, Orville Wright, Marconi, and Bell.

A veritable renaissance man, DeGolyer was organizer of numerous widely known petroleum-related corporations—Amerada Petroleum Corp., Rycade Oil Corp., Geophysical Research Corp., Geophysical Service Inc., and Core Laboratories—publisher of the Saturday Review of Literature, and an avid collector of early Americana and literature of the American Southwest.

He was born in a sod hut near Greensburg, Kansas, on October 9, 1886, and died a multimillionaire in Dallas, Texas, on December 14, 1956. During his 70 years, DeGolyer was the most renowned petroleum geologist in the world. Perhaps more than anyone else, he succeeded in wedding geophysics and petroleum exploration.

As a 24-year-old college student, he took a job with Mexican Eagle Oil Company and mapped the geological structure of most of the area later to be known as the famous "Golden Lane." In 1910 he selected the location for the Portrero del Llano #4 well in Veracruz, which produced about 140 million barrels over its lifetime. DeGolyer also located the discovery well of the Los Naranjos field, which has produced more than 1.24 billion barrels.

After returning to the University of Oklahoma to complete his bachelor’s degree in geology, he worked as chief geologist for Mexican Eagle until 1916, when he established his first consulting business. In 1919, he was tapped by Lord Cowdray to organize Amerada Petroleum, which became under his leadership an outstanding independent oil producing company.

He retired from Amerada in 1932 after serving as president and chairman of the board. DeGolyer returned to consulting, a field that lacked a firm scientific basis in the exploration of fields and the evaluation of reserves. This lacking he set about to correct. With former Amerada colleague Lewis W. MacNaughton, DeGolyer established in 1936 an independent consulting firm because they foresaw the oil industry’s potential growth and its need to become a science instead of a game of chance.

Among his contributions to the industry were the introduction into the United States of the torsion balance as an oil exploration tool and the use of both refraction and reflection seismographs for oil exploration. "What a void there would be in earth-science if there had been no DeGolyer. How much more slowly exploration by geophysics would have advanced is hard to imagine," wrote George E. Sweet in The History of Geophysical Prospecting.

In addition, DeGolyer worked with the Petroleum Administration for War as director of conservation and later as assistant deputy administrator during World War II. Former Secretary of Defense James V. Forrestal called DeGolyer "the most competent authority in the petroleum industry" and the best counsel in this field the government could obtain. DeGolyer served on numerous other commissions and societies during his lifetime and was Distinguished Professor of Geology at the University of Texas in 1940.

An organizer of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, he served as its president in 1925 and was made an honorary member of the association in 1944. The AAPG awarded him the Sidney Powers Memorial Medal in 1945.

He also served as president of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers in 1927. The Institute awarded him the Anthony F. Lucas Medal in 1940 for "initiating applied geophysics, directing the early practical seismic exploration and fostering applied science in finding, developing and producing oil." In 1942, he received the John Fritz Medal for "his vision and leadership in developing and applying the art of geophysical exploration to petroleum deposits". In 1951 he was elected to honorary membership in the AIME, one of the highest honors the Institute can offer.

DeGolyer received honorary degrees from the Colorado School of Mines, Southern Methodist University, Tulane University, Washington University, Princeton University, Trinity College, and the University of Mexico. Prohibited by its charter from conferring honorary degrees, his alma mater, the University of Oklahoma, created the Distinguished Service Citation to honor its most distinguished graduate.