Dusty Roach
Welcome! Let me start off by saying that the title is just a rhetorical question. If you ask any safety person, they may say they have retired. Then if you do a small job around the house with them you will experience the fact that they do not retire. In that sense, they’re like the hard-core operations personnel who will not proceed until they have reconnoitered the job, seen what material are needed, determined the tools needed to complete the task, and decided what risks are present. They do it whether they wish to admit it or not.
As of October 1st, I am checking it in, hanging up my boots, in terms of a Safety-Man, in title only. It is my intention to keep writing for Permian Basin Oil and Gas magazine, as long as they have me. The main reason that I’m retiring at the young age of 71 is because the winters and the summers are too hard on me physically. If I cannot be with the guys in the field, monitoring their work habits or helping identify hazards that they do not see, then it is indeed time to hang it up.
On the other hand, I will be continuing my writing. I am as passionate about getting the message out as I ever was, even while I was in operations. I will be heading down to the Delaware Basin though. There is a fence line that has boots on top of the fence posts. It is a 10-mile stretch of boots on every fence post—a stretch that represents people that either quit the oilfield, or the oilfield quit them. Some of them just ran out of time.
I did not quit the oilfield. I started out as a roughneck in May 31st of 1971. By the time you read this, I will be retired by October 1st, 2024. Granted, over the 19,449 days since I started the oilfield, there were some downturns, layoffs, and other jobs in between, but through it all, the oilfield has always been my passion.
There were two generations of oilfield before me: my grandfather (who did work on wooden derricks) and my father (who worked overseas for an international company). There are currently two generations behind me: my son and a grandson who are working in the Permian Basin. My wife of 44-plus years currently works for an oil and gas firm and has been for 28-plus years.
Sadly, someday, the petroleum industry will be phased out and replaced by some alternative energy resources. I do not predict that will happen anytime soon. The industry’s plethora of petroleum byproducts—currently at some 6,000 and counting—will keep us around for a while.
So, when you are driving down a stretch of road, and see boots on a fencepost, they may be mine. It is a tradition here in Texas, not widely known, that when you quit the oilfield after a career or just quit after two weeks, your last pair of boots belong on a fence post. Passersby can know that the footwear belonged either to cowboys (because the boots are cowboy boots) or to someone in the “patch” (because they’re steel-toed).
There was a movie called Jeremiah Johnson. In the film, Jeremiah asked Chief Dan George why he gave up the battle to the Bluecoats.
Chief Dan George replied, “I didn’t give up! My horse gave up.”
I did not give up on the oilfield, my body did. The heat, the cold, the long days, and the long nights working on a rig or even doing accident investigations in the elements can, after enough time, make even an old roughneck/safety guy say “Calf-rope.”
So those of you reading this, chances are, regardless of your title, from the top to the bottom, you too have enjoyed your time and you are proud of being in the petroleum industry, more specifically the Permian Basin oil and gas industry.
Our industry and the leaders in the Permian Basin have helped us win wars, stay warm in the winters, and cool in the summer. And we’ve kept America moving during bad times, tough times, and even some good times. Thanks to our industry, we have directly impacted our nation’s success, a nation that still dominates in the research and development of products and services that are too numerous to count.
Hard work, dedication, blood, sweat, and tears are a way of life in the Permian Basin oil and gas business.
As I always say when wrapping up, It is not how many hits you have in baseball that counts. It is how many times you reach home safely that counts. Till next month, keep it turning to the right! —Dusty
Dusty Roach is a safety professional based in Midland. He is also a public speaker on subjects of leadership and safety, and he maintains a personal website at dustyroach.com.