Harold Schelling
Tuesday, Jun 5, 2018
A salute and farewell to a dear friend mine and mentor--Bob Reed he was all-oilfield--he was nothing less than a maverick in a profession full of mavericks--he aggressively commanded WEST Engineering with masterful vision and assertive contract negotiation. Bob helped turn WEST Engineering from B.O.P. Company (Blowout Preventer) into a serious oilfield engineering and service company. When I joined WEST in 2007 they were working on projects throughout the world from Singapore, Saudi Arabia, to the West Coast of Africa, to Alaska, Russia, and the Norwegian Sea--it was truly an exciting company to work for the possibilities for advancement and achievement seemed endless and the company encouraged a strong entrepreneurial spirit amongst it's employees--anyone who worked at WEST would tell you that and Bob Reed was there at the helm of the company aggressively, landing contracts and hiring from a list of contacts of professionals that was worldwide.
Bob was one of those negotiators that you would marvel at and say to yourself--"How does he do it?" He was one of the few people who could talk at the blue collar level just as easy a he could mingle with white collar executives--he was Vice President of Drilling systems at West Engineering and an educated man.
In knowing Bob Reed you had to understand that he seemed to possess supernatural gift of incite in sizing-up talent in people and their level of expertise and competence because you see--Bob was a phenomenal scout for oil industry personnel--he truly enjoyed putting teams together, he would assemble a team from scratch within a matter of hours and then bring that team to an oil corporation or drilling company for a bid and successfully win the bid and have that team working within a couple of days--it was bizarre and brilliant. There were no novices at WEST--just seasoned professionals who might only be ignorant of how to fill expense reports--anyway--it worked and WEST became a rising star in the oilfield as an engineering and services company.
Thank you Bob for being in my life--in knowing you I have come to the realization that I have walked with titans!
God speed.
God speed.
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Copyright © 2018 by Harold Schelling
