The Distinguished Service Award: Celebrating the Oil and Natural Gas Innovators Who Set the Pace for Texas Success

AUSTIN - The Texas Oil & Gas Association released the following column as a part of TXOGA's year-long celebration of its centennial anniversary.

Founded in ingenuity. Fueled by innovation. This year, the Texas Oil & Gas Association celebrates one hundred years - a significant milestone only achievable through the discovery, determination and grit of the forward-thinking men and women who make up the oil and natural gas industry.

The desire to explore, discover, and harness the resources that fuel the world is a timeless quest. The women and men who step up to meet that challenge are those with an exceptional combination of tenacity, intuition and intelligence. From the pioneers who first struck oil in Nacogdoches, to the wildcatters who changed the game at Spindletop, to the innovators who tapped into the technologies that modernized our industry with hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, to those who developed the juggernaut known as the Permian Basin, these extraordinary men and women propelled our state and our nation into the energy space as global leaders. The list goes on, but the story remains the same. Our state's oil and natural gas industry - the lifeblood of Texas education, Texas highways, the Texas economy and the Texas way of life - would not be the nation's number one producer of oil and natural gas in the number one producing nation in the world without the illustrious individuals who set the pace for success.

Recognizing that oil and natural gas would not exist as the backbone of modern life without these individuals, the Texas Oil & Gas Association created the Distinguished Service Award in 1936, and for more than eighty years, TXOGA has bestowed this honor to the great ambassadors of an industry that profoundly impacts our lives and the lives of those throughout the world.

In 2019, in TXOGA's Centennial year, we will honor Hilcorp Energy Company's Jeffery Hildebrand and Exxon Mobil Corporation's Darren Woods at the TXOGA Centennial Celebration October 22, 2019. See below for a full list of past Distinguished Service Award recipients:

+++