Dick Saulsbury’s impact can be felt on projects all across the Permian Basin, and now his remarkable career will be recognized when Saulsbury is honored as the Permian Basin Petroleum Association’s 2019 Top Hand winner at the annual Permian Basin 2019 Top Hand Award Banquet on the evening of Jan. 16 at the Barbara and George H.W. Bush Convention Center in Midland.
“The thing that means the most to me is all the people that I have such respect for who have received this honor before,” said Saulsbury, 79. “These are all people who have tried to do good things.”
The Top Hand is the highest award bestowed by members of the PBPA and one of the highest honors given to an energy professional in the Permian Basin.
Saulsbury’s career in the Permian Basin spans more than 50 years, but his career in the oil and gas industry actually began before he moved to Texas.
Saulsbury grew up in Smackover, a small town in South Arkansas. He described his home as being just a couple of blocks from the only stoplight in his hometown. Smackover and South Arkansas were in the middle of an oil boom, however, and Saulsbury said he first began working in oil field as a youngster.
“I began working on derricks when I was just 11 years old,” he recalled. “I have overhauled every type of engine there is. The phone would ring in the superintendent’s office [that was long before cell phones], and an independent producer would ask if I was free. I would go pull well for $10 and fill up my car with a tank of gasoline.”
After graduation from Smackover High School, he enrolled at Louisiana Tech to major in electrical engineering. After just three semesters, however, he left school, got married, and accepted his uncle’s offer to join him in Odessa to work for Dixie Electric.
“He kept after me to come out here,” Saulsbury said, “so I came out to West Texas in 1961 to learn a trade. I lived in Wickett for a year and then moved to Odessa.”
He did more that learn a trade, however. Saulsbury eventually founded Saulsbury Industries, which he described as the only organization in the Permian Basin capable of providing total construction services, including general construction, instrumentation, and engineering. He and his wife Amelia have lived in Odessa ever since.
“You don’t get shut down [by the weather in West Texas],” he quipped. “There is not a bunch of ticks, chiggers, and mosquitoes here [compared to South Arkansas]. We work 10-hour days out here, too. I like that.”
Saulsbury said he and two other coworkers decided to leave Dixie Electric to start their own business in 1963, forming Star Electric. Four years later, he pulled out and started his own company, Saulsbury Electric. Dixie Electric and Star Electric are still in business.
First, he bought Control and Construction, a company that built control systems for pumping units. He then started Eagle Pipe Inspection, a pipe inspection company that he later changed to Eagle Instrumentation and Construction.
In 1980, Saulsbury said he bought the assets of WRB and formed Saulcon, Inc., a construction company that was licensed to work in other states, including his native Arkansas.
In the early 1990s, the company continued to expand and adopted the name “Saulsbury Industries,” even though Saulsbury said the various companies operated as “totally different companies” with their own legal entities, and moved into new offices.
While that setup provided the segregation needed for responsibility breakdown for employees and rapid expansion occurred, Saulsbury found that it was creating a gap between the clients and inner-company relations. So on Jan. 1, 2012, Saulsbury Industries announced that the three separate companies—Saulsbury Electric, Saulsbury Engineeringm and Saulcon, Inc.—would officially be known as Saulsbury Industries.
Saulsbury Industries currently employs more than 1,800. Saulsbury also has Saulsbury Gas and Oil, which has working interests in different oil fields.
“We are just a flea on the dog’s tail,” he joked, downplaying his company’s role in production.
As the company moved into the construction business, Saulsbury Industries started building gas processing plants. In the 1990s and early 2000s, Saulsbury’s son Bubba, who serves as the company’s executive vice president of sales, said the company diversified into building power plants and manufacturing facilities. It even did maintenance work at nuclear plants, too.
“We continued to expand the business,” Bubba said.”Our timing worked out. As the shale plays [with rich gas] took off, there was a need for more gas processing plants. Even though the new unconventional shale plays are mostly liquids, the gas still has to be processed.”
He said Saulsbury Industries has built 57 gas processing plants in the last 12 years, estimating the company has built 30 percent of the gas processing plants in the Permian Basin. It has also done most of the carbon dioxide enhanced oil recovery work for Kinder Morgan and Oxy.
“I think we have done more CO2 construction than any company,” he added. That construction includes work for Kinder Morgan at both its giant carbon-dioxide flood in the SACROC Unit in Scurry County as well as Kinder Morgan’s Southwest Cortez source field in Colorado.
“We have done work on gas plants in the Denver-Julesburg Basin [in Colorado], and we are finishing our second plant in the Bakken [in North Dakota],” he continued. “We have done work in the Eagle Ford [in South Texas], too, as well as in Oklahoma and North Texas.”
Saulsbury projects listed on the company web site include tank batteries, gas plants, compressor stations, pipelines, and other infrastructure for companies such as Occidental Petroleum and XTO in the Permian and Delaware basins.
Saulsbury has a number of satellite yards and offices around the county where it does electrical projects.
“The last several years we have started doing more field services, such as gathering pipelines, tank batteries, and compressor stations,” Bubba noted. “As the majors have bought up oilfields, they need someone with a good safety record to do the work for them.”
Saulsbury is also proud of his company’s safety record. Dick feels likewise.
“We have one of the best safety records in the industry,” Dick Saulsbury said. “That is our commitment. The quickest way to get fired is to not follow our safety rules. We want our employees to love what they are doing and be safe.”
Bubba has been working for his father’s company for nearly 30 years.
“I don’t know anything else,” he said with a laugh. “We have one person who is still with us who was our first employee 53 years ago.”
Dick Saulsbury calls “technology” the biggest change he has seen in his nearly six decades in the Permian Basin.
“Innovation,” he emphasized. “You think something is dead, and then the industry figures out a way to get more oil out of the ground. Technology is the boon to not only get the oil out of the ground but to also get it economically. When I first started, nobody thought about drilling horizontally. There is so much better control today, too. This is an interesting business.”
Saulsbury said it would be “comfortable” for the industry if oil prices can remain in the $55 to $60 per barrel range.
“When the Vice President [Mike Pence] was out here [in a visit to the Permian Basin],” Saulsbury stated, “I told him that if we could keep $60 a barrel, we could generate plenty of oil. There is a lot more oil that is recoverable in the Permian Basin.”
Saulsbury has been a supporter of many community organizations in the Permian Basin with emphasis on those organizations and efforts that focus on building community, supporting education, and providing social services.
“To whom much is given, much is required,” he stated. “I have tried to do a lot for the community.”
While Saulsbury stepped down from the day-to-day operation of the company eight years ago, his four children—daughter Diana Zugg and sons Mark, C.R. (Bubba) and Matt—own 52 percent of the company and all are still involved in its operation. All four sit on the company’s board of directors.
One thing that is unique about the company, according to Bubba Saulsbury, is that the company installed an independent board of directors in 2009 and hired an outside chief executive officer (Chat York currently serves as CEO). All four Saulsbury children work in various capacities in the company.
“We all have different skill sets,” Bubba explained. “We all wear three hats, working in the company, serving as owners, and serving on the board of directors. We wanted to make sure that company is run by the best people, regardless of their last name. It has worked out pretty well.”
Bubba called his father his role model.
“His success can be attributed to the way he structured the company with Christian principles,” Bubba said. “Honesty and integrity will get you a long way. He has left big shoes to fill. He is such a great pillar of the community.”
In an earlier interview with Permian Basin Oil and Gas magazine, Dick Saulsbury, who was previously named the Odessa Citizen of the Year, gave some of the credit for his success to being able to relate to people from all walks of life.
“It is a blessing I have,” he stated, “to be able to get in the ditch with the lowest employee or sit by the President of the United States and feel comfortable with either one. That is a gift.”
Saulsbury has been active in a number of charities, including Bible Islands, which he said is an effort to spread God’s word. He has served on more than 10 boards in Midland/Odessa, including Meals on Wheels. He claimed the legacy he has passed on to his children is not just the company but also his Christian values. He quoted what Patrick Henry said on his deathbed:
“Doctor,” the American Revolutionary patriot said, “I wish you to observe how real and beneficial the religion of Christ is to a man about to die…. I am, however, much consoled by reflecting that the religion of Christ has, from its first appearance in the world, been attacked in vain by all the wits, philosophers, and wise ones, aided by every power of man, and its triumphs have been complete.”
On Nov. 20, 1978, in his Last Will and Testament, Henry wrote, “This is all the inheritance I give to my dear family. The religion of Christ will give them one which will make them rich indeed.”
It is that philosophy that Saulsbury has followed during his life, and his remarkable career both in the oil and gas industry and in the community will be recognized as he is recognized as this year’s Top Hand Award recipient.
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Al Pickett is a freelance writer in Abilene and author of five books. He also owns the West Central Texas Oil Activity Index, a daily and weekly oil and gas reporting service. For more information, email apickett@sbcglobal.net.