Management Team
McAndrew Rudisill
Chief Executive Officer
McAndrew Rudisill has 11 years of investment management and investment banking experience in the natural resources sector. Prior to joining the Company, Mr. Rudisill served as a non-executive director of Emerald Oil & Gas NL ("Emerald Australia") and was President and Chairman of Emerald Oil. Mr. Rudisill was the Managing Partner and founder of Pelagic Capital Advisors LP from 2007 to 2011. Prior to forming Pelagic Capital Advisors LP, Mr. Rudisill was a co- founder and Managing Partner of BrightStream Asset Management which focused on investments in natural resources from 2005 to 2007. Before co-founding BrightStream, Mr. Rudisill was an Analyst and Managing Director at North Sound Capital from 2003 to 2005 where he was responsible for investments in global natural resources. Mr. Rudisill currently serves as a Non-Executive Director of Ochre Group Holdings Limited (ASX: OGH) and serves as a trustee of the Tiger Foundation, which is a philanthropic organization focused on serving New York City. Mr. Rudisill's investment career began at JPMorgan, where he worked as an investment banker.
Mike Krzus
President
Mike Krzus has over 29 years of experience managing technical and business areas in upstream oil and gas, liquefied natural gas and geothermal. Prior to joining the Company, Mr. Krzus was the Chief Executive and Operating Officer of Emerald Oil & Gas NL ("Emerald Australia") since February 12, 2009 and was its Managing Director since August 13, 2009. Starting as a petroleum engineer with Home Oil in Calgary in 1983, he then proceeded to Woodside Petroleum Ltd (Australia's largest operating oil company) in 1986 at which he held various management and executive positions involving technical oil and gas field development (including a four year secondment to Shell where he led gas and oil field development teams in the Netherlands), exploration and production business development, company business planning and evaluations, joint venture management and technical capability management. Before leaving Woodside Petroleum Ltd in 2007 he was responsible for its sub-surface technical oil and gas development capability and technology and its capital gating approval process. Prior to joining Emerald Australia, Mr. Krzus ran a geothermal exploration company that was a subsidiary of Eden Energy. He is a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) and Graduate member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD). He holds a Diploma in Oil and Gas Technology from the British Columbia Institute of Technology and a BSc in Petroleum Engineering from Tulsa University.
James Russell (J.R.) Reger
Executive Chairman
James Russell (J.R.) Reger was the Chief Executive Officer of the Company since December 31, 2009 and has been our Chief Executive Officer and a director since April 16, 2010. Mr. Reger was born and raised in Billings, Montana and is the fourth generation in a family of oil and gas explorers and developers dating back more than 60 years. Mr. Reger's great grandfather was Vice President of Land for Mobil Oil's Rocky Mountain operations. His grandfather, Jim Reger, co-founded the exploration firm of Norsworthy & Reger. Prior to accepting the position as CEO of the Company, Mr. Reger was the President of South Fork Exploration, a mineral leasing company in Billings, MT with experience and interests in Montana and North Dakota. Mr. Reger holds a B.A. in Finance from Baylor University in Waco, Texas. We believe Mr. Reger's qualifications to sit on our Board include his extensive experience in our core business of oil and gas exploration and production.
Paul Wiesner
Chief Financial Officer
Paul Wiesner has over 20 years of experience in oil and gas finance and accounting with a proven ability to improve operations, impact business growth and maximize profits through financial management, cost reductions, internal controls and productivity improvements. Prior to joining the Company, Mr. Wiesner was the Chief Financial Officer of Tracker Resource Development II, LLC from 2008 to 2011. From 2005 to 2008, Mr. Wiesner was Chief Financial Officer, Secretary and Treasurer for Storm Cat Energy where he launched private placements from institutional investors and hedge funds, and he identified and analyzed strategic acquisitions and joint ventures. From 2002 to 2005, Mr. Wiesner served as Chief Financial Officer of NRT Colorado, Inc. where he brought new ideas and a challenging voice to the company. He streamlined operations, reduced costs, restructured staffing and implemented internal controls. Mr. Wiesner has held roles in various private companies where he sourced capital from both equity and debt markets, evaluated and tracked investment performance, participated in the strategic direction of the companies. He has experience in the oil and gas, mining and high tech industries. Mr. Wiesner graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Claremont McKenna College and a Master's of Business Administration degree from MIT Sloan School of Management.
Karl Osterbuhr
Vice President of Exploration and Business Development
Karl Osterbuhr has over 20 years of unique experience in the field that gives him a thorough understanding of all types of field operations. He has particular expertise in geo steering horizontal wells, under balanced drilling in high temperature high pressure environments and managed pressure drilling operations. Mr. Osterbuhr's exploration experience includes over 17 separate petroleum provinces in the US and Canada. His technical expertise includes working with hydrothermal dolomites and other complex carbonate depositional systems, tight gas multi-storied cretaceous sandstones, multi-pay clastic and evaporate sequences as well and unconventional oil and gas shales. Prior to joining the Company, Mr. Osterbuhr was self-employed as a consultant from 2010 to 2012, and in early 2012 he joined Emerald Oil. Mr. Osterbuhr founded NYSG, LLC in June 2008 with two other private equity partners and put together 35,000 acres in the unconventional Utica Shale play of upstate New York. Before founding NYSG, LLC, Mr. Osterbuhr served as Exploration Manager at Delta Petroleum beginning in 2007 where he was responsible for frontier exploration ventures in the Rocky Mountain basins and the onshore Gulf Coast region. He also managed the Austin Chalk Business unit, which at the time was the most profitable business in the company. Mr. Osterbuhr earned his Bachelor of Science in Geology from Kansas State University and is an active member of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists and the Society of Petroleum Engineers.
Mitchell R. Thompson
Chief Accounting Officer
Mitchell R. Thompson was the Chief Financial Officer of the Company since December 1, 2009 and has been our Chief Financial Officer since April 16, 2010. Prior to accepting the position as our Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Thompson held positions with Grant Thornton in Minneapolis as well as Anderson ZurMuehlen & Co. in Billings, MT where he was an assurance manager. He has been a licensed CPA since 2006 and brings a great deal of experience in financial reporting, internal control and corporate tax. Mr. Thompson holds a B.S. and Master's in Accounting from Montana State University.
Marty Beskow
Vice President of Finance / Capital Markets
Marty Beskow has over 15 years of investment industry experience, with a significant focus on natural resources. Prior to joining the Company in March 2012, Mr. Beskow served as Vice President, Senior Equity Analyst at Northland Securities, operating as Northland Capital Markets, covering oil exploration and production companies, many with operations focused on the Williston Basin. Prior to joining Northland in 2010, he was the Vice President and Portfolio Manager from 2009 to 2010 at Blue Water Capital Advisors, a money management firm that managed a natural resource focused portfolio and broad based portfolios. From 2007 to 2009, Mr. Beskow was a Vice President at Interlachen Capital Group, a multi-strategy hedge fund. From 2003 to 2007, he was a Principal at Stonehill Financial and from 1998 to 2002 was an Equity Research Analyst at U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray. Earlier in his career Mr. Beskow received the Chartered Financial Analyst charterholder designation in 2001, Certified Public Accounting license (currently inactive) in 1994, and began his career with over 4 years of experience at KPMG, a Big 4 public accounting firm.
David Veltri
Chief Operating Officer
David Veltri has over 31 years of oil and gas industry experience with a major oil company and several independent oil companies, where he has managed and provided engineering for all phases of upstream and mid-stream oil and gas operations, covering North Dakota, Wyoming, the Rocky Mountains, the Southern U.S., Mid-Continent, Louisiana, Texas and various international locations. Most recently, Mr. Veltri served as an independent petroleum engineering consultant from October 2011 through November 2012. From August 2008 through September 2011, Mr. Veltri served as Vice President/General Manager of Baytex Energy USA Ltd., where he managed business unit operations, capital drilling programs, lease maintenance and producing properties in the Williston Basin in North Dakota. From September 2006 to July 2008, Mr. Veltri was Production Manager at El Paso Exploration and Production Company, where he managed producing oil and gas properties located in northern New Mexico. Mr. Veltri received a Bachelor of Science in Mining and Engineering from West Virginia University.