I returned to the US, bought a house in the Houston Heights, and decided that I would not work for a while.
Due to personal circumstances beyond the scope of this blog, that didn't happen. So when my old boss from Landmark called me and said he was recruited to run a start-up data company, I said yes.
The company, Bell Geospace, had secured the rights to an instrument invented for stealth submarine navigation - a Gravity Gradiometer. It was about the coolest thing I had ever seen:
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Due to personal circumstances beyond the scope of this blog, that didn't happen. So when my old boss from Landmark called me and said he was recruited to run a start-up data company, I said yes.
The company, Bell Geospace, had secured the rights to an instrument invented for stealth submarine navigation - a Gravity Gradiometer. It was about the coolest thing I had ever seen:
;
It was designed to measure the first dervivative of gravity. Now, since we all know that gravity is a vector, so the first derivative of a vector is a nine component tensor. We also know that because of self similarity (the xy component is equal to the yx component, etc) there are only five unique components of that nine component tensor.
But more to the point, the instrument (which we dubbed the "FTG" or Full Tensor Gradiometer (yes, I came up with that. Just as I did Full Wave Seismic.)) had to measure the difference in gravity between two points about five inches apart.
Concede that it did, and let me get on with the story.
We knew that there was great potential for this data. If you could find a way to combine this information with seismic data, you could make the seismic data much more valuable. Indeed, if you could combine this data with seismic data during processing, it would be possible to determing the size, shape, and thickness of subsurface salt bodies. That is important because salt is impervious to oil and gas, and does a good job trapping it. But salt is also a great reflector of sounds waves (for seismic imaging) so it hard to "see" through.
We decided that to make this company successful, we needed to go all in, all the way. So I started as the VP of Sales, but quickly took over at Chief Operating Officer. In that roll we raised a bunch of money, hired a lot of people, bought (and sank) a boat, opened an overseas office, chartered a couple of boats (that didn't sink) and generally had a grand old time.
Our problem, as with many small companies, was that our sales did not come close to keeping up with our expenditures. We hired over 60 people any never had more that $2 million a year in sales. We were burning (ie, spending more than we were taking in) about $1.5 million a month. We were cursed with cash. We had a CEO, a COO, a CFO (and a controller), an Ops Manager, two or three salesmen, an overseas office, and a charter on two big boats. (I won't go into the vessel that sank. It was a SWATH [small waterplane area twin hull] vessel originally designed as a fishing boat. We made mistakes)
We had great plans, great marketing, it is just that the industry was not ready for us. Then oil dropped to about $9/bbl (those bad old days) and the demand dried up as well.
As we were running out of cash, the Board of Directors asked me if I would take over as CEO. (remember, the previous CEO was (and is) a good friend of mine) I said OK, but prepared them for the fact that we might have to file for bankruptcy.
They were prepared, I was promoted, and we finally filed for Chapter 11 protection. I think that is worth its own entry.
But more to the point, the instrument (which we dubbed the "FTG" or Full Tensor Gradiometer (yes, I came up with that. Just as I did Full Wave Seismic.)) had to measure the difference in gravity between two points about five inches apart.
Concede that it did, and let me get on with the story.
We knew that there was great potential for this data. If you could find a way to combine this information with seismic data, you could make the seismic data much more valuable. Indeed, if you could combine this data with seismic data during processing, it would be possible to determing the size, shape, and thickness of subsurface salt bodies. That is important because salt is impervious to oil and gas, and does a good job trapping it. But salt is also a great reflector of sounds waves (for seismic imaging) so it hard to "see" through.
We decided that to make this company successful, we needed to go all in, all the way. So I started as the VP of Sales, but quickly took over at Chief Operating Officer. In that roll we raised a bunch of money, hired a lot of people, bought (and sank) a boat, opened an overseas office, chartered a couple of boats (that didn't sink) and generally had a grand old time.
Our problem, as with many small companies, was that our sales did not come close to keeping up with our expenditures. We hired over 60 people any never had more that $2 million a year in sales. We were burning (ie, spending more than we were taking in) about $1.5 million a month. We were cursed with cash. We had a CEO, a COO, a CFO (and a controller), an Ops Manager, two or three salesmen, an overseas office, and a charter on two big boats. (I won't go into the vessel that sank. It was a SWATH [small waterplane area twin hull] vessel originally designed as a fishing boat. We made mistakes)
We had great plans, great marketing, it is just that the industry was not ready for us. Then oil dropped to about $9/bbl (those bad old days) and the demand dried up as well.
As we were running out of cash, the Board of Directors asked me if I would take over as CEO. (remember, the previous CEO was (and is) a good friend of mine) I said OK, but prepared them for the fact that we might have to file for bankruptcy.
They were prepared, I was promoted, and we finally filed for Chapter 11 protection. I think that is worth its own entry.
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