Gaston takes semi-retirement after 31 years at Ryder Scott

Harry J. Gaston Jr., president emeritus, who began working for Ryder Scott in 1967, has recently taken semi-retirement, but will continue to work part time. "I still plan to be involved at Ryder Scott for the foreseeable future. My attachment to the Company and its people, as well as my association with the many friends and acquaintances I have made in the oil and gas industry over the years, is still very important to me," he said. "I hope to continue to provide some benefit to the company through the years of experience I have achieved."

In the early 1960s when punch-card computer technology was used, Gaston and a young Rice University graduate student developed Ryder Scott’s first cash-flow program. "As far as I know, we developed the first output that would place commas in numerical tabulations at each thousand level," he said. They also developed a technique that provided many levels of summary for the cash-flow report. "These features became a trade mark by which Ryder Scott reports were identified," said Gaston.

In a world of hand calculations and slide rules, Gaston was an early promoter of the use of computers to do engineering work. "It was not easy to convince my associates that the use of computer technology was imperative," he said. "As time has shown, the use of computer technology has opened up many opportunities in accounting for complicated ownership and in technical calculations -- both too time consuming for hand calculations."

Among the most memorable projects for Gaston was a reservoir-modeling study he performed during the early 1970s. During that time, most oil fields in Texas were produced at full capacity because of relaxed allowables. Subsequently, reservoir pressures declined and gas caps formed or grew. That caused gas-oil ratios to increase and many operators were penalized with reduced allowables from the Texas Railroad Commission (RRC).

One client began to receive those penalties for production from a high structural position in the Tom O’Connor field in Texas. Acting on Gaston’s advice, the operator presented the modeling study to the RRC and the report convinced the agency to reduce the maximum efficient rate (MER) allowable.

The study also predicted an optimized production scenario based on the unitized operations of the field. Even though the client had said that unitization was impossible, the study convinced the disparate owners to unitize the field.

Some of the most difficult studies for Gaston have involved abnormally pressured gas reservoirs. The variances between material-balance calculations and the volumetrically determined reserve estimates in those reservoirs became obvious to him as early pressure-performance data became available.

"My obstinate position that the material-balance data was misleading in the Port Acres field in southeast Texas proved to be correct. Later, I took a similar position on the Bolivar Point field, much to the dissatisfaction of the client. Again, time proved my analysis to be correct," he said. The discoveries of many more of those types of reservoirs have provided data encouraging a more cautious approach to the use of early pressure data alone for the estimation of gas reserves. "The most difficult part of my employment has been submitting conclusions undesirable to the client," said Gaston. "In the long run, I believe clients are grateful for the objectivity and independence with which all of us at Ryder Scott have attempted to approach our assignments."

Gaston does not expect to slow down much in semi-retirement if recent history is any indication. He took up snow boarding a couple of years ago and his coworkers still kid him about reporting to work with a broken ankle from trying to negotiate a blue-black slope when, in his words, he was apparently going much faster than his ability would allow. "However, one year later and after a day-long lesson with a snow-board instructor, I can now take that slope safely," he said.

He has also been an avid motorcycle rider since 1964. "My flight instructor encouraged me to buy my first motorcycle so we could have something to do while not flying," said Gaston, who owns three motorcycles and four off-road dirt bikes. In addition to touring places like the Blue Ridge Parkway, Colorado, New Mexico and a planned fall trip to New England, he recently took a trip to the Copper Canyon in Chihuahua, Mexico to explore the canyon on an off-road bike.

"Since accumulating a lot of farm and ranch equipment over the years, I spend a lot of time working on servicing and maintaining it. This satisfies my mechanic instinct," he said.

As he has more time to devote away from the daily activities at Ryder Scott, he will be doing more of those activities.

"The Ryder Scott family of employees are all my most favorite group of people. I could not help but single out Ray Cruce, our chairman, whom I have known and worked with since 1956 as special. We have together seen Ryder Scott grow both in size and reputation over the years and have had many open, unencumbered discussions," said Gaston. "I must also mention Ralph Fellows, Joe Allen and Ron Harrell who were all very instrumental in guiding the firm through good and bad industry times and for whom I have a special relationship."