Lewis W. MacNaughton

Lewis W. MacNaughton was born in 1902 on the Isles of Pines, Gerona, Cuba, the son of a Spanish-American War veteran. From Cuba, the MacNaughtons moved to California, New Jersey and Connecticut before settling in Saugerties, New York, where Mac’s father worked as a railroad foreman. As a youngster, MacNaughton became interested in collecting fossils and rocks under the guidance of Thomas Cole, a retired Episcopal minister who taught geology to small classes of neighborhood boys.

In 1920, after working for a year in a paper mill to earn funds for college, he entered Cornell University as a geology major and graduated four years later. After working a year-and-a-half at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, he went to a railroad station with $100 to buy a ticket to the California oil fields. But the ticket cost $125, so he settled for a boat ride to Galveston and eventually did field work for Humble Oil Co. in east Texas.

In 1928, MacNaughton joined Amerada Petroleum Co. affiliate Rycade as a geologist and in 1930 joined Amerada as a district geologist. At those two companies, MacNaughton began working with DeGolyer, president of Amerada. That association would shape Mac’s career.

When MacNaughton was only 34 years old, he and DeGolyer decided to strike out on their own as consultants. DeGolyer suggested that Mac check out the competition and determine a central office location for serving the oil industry. After looking at several locations, they decided on Dallas, moved into the Continental Building in 1936 and formed an informal association.

From the outset, MacNaughton insisted that the firm’s future would be tied to international business. He and DeGolyer explored global markets as far back as the 1940's when many service firms couldn’t see beyond the oil patch. MacNaughton was a visionary who doggedly pursued business from Brazil, Uruguay and Mexico.

Like DeGolyer, MacNaughton was an unfettered experimenter, a man with reflective values who endorsed the practice of what he and "De" called "loose thinking" to stimulate new ideas. In addition, they had the same basic philosophy. Concerned as they were about the need for a more scientific approach to the then hodge-podge oil industry, their major emphasis was on ethics. Knowledge, Integrity, and Service were established as—and remain—the hallmark of their organization.

MacNaughton believed "The mind is a tool that is sharpened with work," and he traveled the length and breadth of the globe earning a worldwide reputation in geology. He typically logged more than 100,000 miles per year in air travel to such areas as Brazil, Venezuela and the U.K. At the same time he actively directed the firm until his retirement in 1967.

One of Mac’s great talents was organizing new business ventures. He was instrumental in the startup of Exploration Surveys Inc., Trunkline Gas Co., and the Great Plains Development Co. of Canada Ltd. During his career, MacNaughton sought a better understanding of geological processes and their commercial applications. He was a director of Isotopes Inc., a firm that researched the use of radioactive isotopes to solve geological problems, as well as National Beryllia Corp., a natural resource company. In addition he was a director for Dresser Industries Incorporated, Cities Service Company, Southwestern Public Service Company, and Republic National Bank of Dallas.

MacNaughton was a trustee for the Institute for the Study of Earth and Man and the Science Information Institute, both at Southern Methodist University, and served as president and trustee of the Graduate Research Center in Dallas. He was a Fellow of the American Geographical Society and the Geological Society of London, and a member of several professional societies, including the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, the American Geophysical Union, the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers, the Association of Mexican Petroleum Geologists, the Society of Exploration Geophysicists and the Texas Academy of Science.