By Lana Cunningham, special contributor.
Marking its 60th year, Dawson Geophysical keeps practicing the traits that made it a success. Traits derived direct from its founder, Decker Dawson.
First class citizen. The ultimate gentleman. Strong philanthropist. And jokester.
Long-time friends and business contacts describe L. Decker Dawson with the same words over and over. The list includes the terms “generous,” “caring,” and “honest,” as well as “first class act.” His name has become synonymous with quiet leadership and astute business practices.
As the founder of a geophysical company in Midland 60 years ago, Dawson has led the firm to expand conscientiously until it now is the largest geophysical company in the continental U.S., with crews and offices coast to coast, east to west and north to south. During the lean years when other companies shut their doors, Dawson Geophysical continued to operate and was ready when another boom rolled into town.
At the age of 91, Dawson has a love for geophysics that can still bring a smile to his face, even though the field was not something he chose when in college. Born and raised in Tulsa, Dawson was son to a father who worked in the pipeline department for Sinclair, which later became Stanolind Oil. Decker graduated in 1941 from Oklahoma A&M, now Oklahoma State, with a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering. The country was pulling out of the Great Depression and jobs still were not plentiful.
“I worked wherever they sent the crew. I lived out of a suitcase.”
“The only job I could find when I graduated was on a seismograph crew with Magnolia Petroleum,” Dawson recalled, even though he didn’t know at the time what a geophysicist did. “I was an instant doodlebugger and I loved it,” he said, a grin spreading across his face. “I thought, ‘You mean you can find oil down there below the surface?’” His job involved “lugging jugs,” or laying electrical devices that record sound waves generated by explosive charges.
When World War II broke out, Dawson detoured into the Navy Seabees and then returned to the States for a position at Republic Exploration. With business booming throughout Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Texas, the young engineer found himself constantly on the move. “We were like gypsies,” he said. “I worked wherever they sent the crew. I lived out of a suitcase.”
Then came the assignment to a dusty town in West Texas known as Midland and a chance to settle down. He wasn’t in Midland long before his eye caught the sight of a young woman walking down a street. “I thought she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen, and the guy that was with me said he knew her and did I want to meet her?” They met in May and in December Dawson wed the Western Company employee, Louise Loper. She passed away in March 2011.
The Oklahoma native also fell in love with Midland. “The war was over and people my age were flooding into Midland. There was a lot of enthusiasm, along with growth and expansion in the business. Good things were happening. We all felt lucky. We were busy and working hard,” he said.
“There is so much riding on what we do.”
Dawson harnessed that enthusiasm and coupled it with his experience as a doodlebugger to launch his own geophysical company in 1952. That year Forrest Oil contacted Republic to see if they would put another crew in the Permian Basin. Republic declined. Dawson saw his door of opportunity swing open. He called Forrest Oil to see if they would take a chance on him and they said “yes.” Within 30 days, he opened Dawson Geophysical with one crew and himself as the geophysicist. Lacking business training, he called on a certified public accountant to teach him about business planning, insurance, and banking pitfalls. His wife handled bookkeeping and clerical duties.
Two years later, three to four crews were added and Dawson Geophysical Company opened an office, replacing its Post Office Box that had been serving as “home office.” Five years later, crews were working coast to coast, according to the founder.
Over the years, equipment and technology have changed and the company has evolved to incorporate them. Crews now use 3-D and digital. Dawson told Oil & Gas Investor magazine in November 2010 that digital has made the biggest difference in the business. “We used to have these long paper seismic records and [used to] do the processing with paper and pencil, until the computer came along. We got into processing as quickly as we could. People are thinking of new ways to do things every day. We’ve kept up with it.”
Starting with shooting seismic in the Permian Basin, the company also now works in every major basin in the United States, from the Bakken to the Marcellus, from North Dakota and Wyoming to Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
“We’re very busy in the Permian Basin,” he noted. “For a lot of years people thought this was a mature field. With fracking, it’s now the most active basin in the U.S.”
With 1,500 employees stretched across the country, Dawson described his firm “like a moving target. Every day a crew is finishing up somewhere and starting a job somewhere else the next day. There is so much riding on what we do. We’re trying to help the industry find oil and gas.”
The company received an award from New Mexico’s BLM.
Techniques used in one area won’t work in another, he noted. Since vibrator trucks can’t be used in the Pennsylvania mountains “we use helicopters to put drilling machines down to drill holes for dynamite.”
When economic busts hit the industry, Dawson and his employees watched expenses and continued working. That is one factor that others in the petroleum industry have admired. Petroleum engineer Arlen Edgar said Dawson’s company is noted for “his obvious business success even with the ups and downs of the industry.”
Business associates and friends all point to the Oklahoman’s integrity as one of his outstanding traits. The company mission even states on the website, “Since our founding in 1952, integrity, reliability and stability have defined who we are. This is Dawson. You have our word.”
“He is the most honest upright man whose byword is integrity,” said Tim Thompson, who serves on Dawson’s board of directors. “He is a class act and holds everyone to the highest esteem. His motto is: ‘Do it right.’”
That motto is practiced every day in the business. In 2008 the company received a Restore New Mexico award from that state’s Bureau of Land Management. The company was commended for going “above and beyond responsible business and environmental practices in working with the BLM… to restore grasslands and other landscapes in southeastern New Mexico.”
Decker… knows how to get the last laugh.
From the moment Dawson’s shoes touched the streets of Midland, he also began digging a reputation for his humor. Thompson pointed to the leader’s droll sense of humor and longtime friend G.W. Brock has been involved in many of the stories. Brock met the geophysicist not long after moving to Midland in 1952.
Wife Lou once took Decker’s car out of the garage and parked it in the next block on April Fool’s Day, Brock recalled. When her husband headed out the door to go to work, he couldn’t find the car and was convinced it was stolen. It was only when he was on the verge of calling police that Lou finally confessed.
Brock recalled that Decker hated the No. 12 tee box at Midland Country Club. “He always hit a short hook and his ball landed in the rough every time. Decker dreaded coming to the No. 12 hole. He never did play that hole without his ball landing in the rough.”
Dawson was known for the jokes he played on friends. There was the Christmas, said Brock, that he came home to find his front door propped open with a “60 cent bottle of Thunderbird wine. I knew it was from Decker.” And it was.
Dawson always seemed to know how to get the last laugh. The two men were part of a group of 10 or 12 who ate lunch almost daily at the Petroleum Club’s “Honest John table. A waitress would write an initial on the back of the check” and Decker figured out one time how to work it so that Brock had to pay the check for the table on 11 consecutive days. “Decker thought it was funny.”
“Generous” and “philanthropist” were also used by various people to describe Dawson. “He is one of the most generous people I know,” Brock said, “and he is a first class citizen.” Dawson has been involved many years with Midland Community Theatre and Midland Memorial Hospital while also contributing to many other endeavors.
The thrill of doodlebugging has not diminished for the founder who still goes to the office every day. “I still love what we do. It is fascinating,” Dawson said.