Through the Long String: The History of Petroleum Engineering at LSU
Dedication
This text began as an investigation into the sixty-five years of history behind the LSU Department of Petroleum Engineering. That investigation has revealed that a major part of the department's history is the story of the life's work of two remarkable men: Benny Craft and Murray Hawkins. These two men set the course of petroleum engineering, not only in the LSU Department of Petroleum ENgineering, but, in many ways, in the petroleum industry as a whole. Beyond sending competent engineers into the field, they helped their students develop as people, as well. Their influence is still evident both in the operation of the department and in the professional style of their former students.
Introduction
One of the most striking facets of the personality of the “average” petroleum engineer is a kind of earthiness. Being down-to-earth may seem natural to people who spend a good bit of time dealing with mud and rock but the trait goes beyond the physical aspects of the job. Many of LSU’s petroleum engineering alumni have established themselves in the upper echelons of corporate leadership, but they still retain an almost down home quality in their outlooks and opinions.
A professor in our department mentioned the trend toward defining the role of the petroleum engineers. He said that petroleum engineers tend to know a little about a lot different engineering tasks rather than knowing a lot about only one very specialized area. In my research, I have found that the main difference between petroleum engineers and other engineering professionals is that petroleum engineers are more willing than most to look for practical solutions to real-life problems. Although they may not all agree on the particular means to that end, they understand that the bottom line is getting the job done.
In the past, LSU has set the standard by which petroleum engineers are judged. LSU has a reputation for turning out engineers who are innovative yet practical; LSU petroleum engineers are willing to take risks, but they know very well how to calculate those risks. In order to maintain this reputation, those of us who are concerned about the department must understand how and why the department achieved such high esteem in the first place. A look at the roots of the department can provide that understanding.
Of even the greater importance, we must make plans for a successful future for the department. We cannot assume that the department will continue to produce the same high-quality engineers that graduated from LSU in the past. We must assess the methods that have been used in the past to choose those techniques that have been successfully employed in petroleum engineering education and research. Because the department has had phenomenal success, we have the advantage of learning from that success. Before we lose touch with the past, however, we must document and record it.
Chapter 1: In the Beginning…
At LSU, petroleum engineering began not as an engineering program but as an extension of the geology curriculum. Therefore, the early history of petroleum engineering at LSU is intertwined with the history of a strong geology program. One visionary guided both the geology and the petroleum engineering programs into existence and brought together a staff that would develop and perpetuate a reputation for excellence in both fields.
Until the appointment of Dr. Henry V. Howe in 1922, LSU had very little to offer in the field of geology and nothing in terms of petroleum engineering courses. No organized geology department truly existed, and the few courses that were offered were often taught by non-geologists through the department of agriculture. Further, the geology “department” had very little equipment for laboratory study or for classroom instruction, and the extensive fossil and mineral collections were unorganized, has never been numbered and indexed, and had been neglected for twenty years prior to Howe’s arrival. Even after Howe arrived to take control of the geology program, his department was housed for years in one room of the home economics department on the old LSU campus.
The state of the geology program at LSU was deplorable, but the lack of a petroleum engineering program at the time was not unusual. The university was not alone in the lack of attention given to training engineers for work in the petroleum industry. During the latter half of the nineteenth century and the first few years of the twentieth, schools were slow to incorporate courses into the curricula that covered oil and gas engineering. Although isolated lectures and courses in oil and gas production and economics were given by individuals with foresight, no truly comprehensive programs existed until after the first quarter of the twentieth century. However, students at many universities were interested in training in the various aspects of petroleum engineering, and, between 1910 and 1925, several universities had begun to offer more and more courses related to petroleum geology, economics, and production.
During the years following 1922, LSU began to develop a more expansive policy in regard to both geology and petroleum engineering. As the head of the geology department, Howe became instrumental in creating a school that would produce not only geologists but also geographers, anthropologists, and petroleum engineers. Through his influence, the School of Geology officially established in 1931. This new “school” operated within the College of Arts and Sciences, but Howe was given relative autonomy in the administration of the programs he developed. Interference from the dean of the college was rare, and Howe has the final word in most administrative matters, including interviewing and hiring his own staff.
Howe was especially interested in developing a curriculum for petroleum engineering within this school. He was well aware of the importance of the oil and gas industry to Louisiana and was determined to keep abreast to the growing nationwide trend toward educating engineers specifically for this industry. In a 1933 report on the contribution of LSU to Louisiana geology, Howe wrote that one of the university’s goals had been to develop a “a professional school in Geology and Petroleum Engineering so that Louisiana boys might have the opportunity to fit themselves for positions in the petroleum business.” Conversely, this school would also provide the oil industry with competent local engineers.
Howe first instituted an option in petroleum engineering to the LSU geology curriculum during the 1922-23 academic year. This option included courses in both economic and petroleum geology as well as additional chemistry courses, but no courses specific to petroleum field work yet existed. However, as the catalog entry for that year indicates, students were strongly encouraged to pursue the petroleum engineering option.
Although Howe saw the benefits and logic behind offering this petroleum engineering option, he was ill equipped to provide his students with the depth of study that would soon be required in the field. Howe was one of the most respected paleontologists of his time, but he had limited experience in the area of petroleum engineering. Until 1929, temporary instructors, like P. H. O’Bannon who had a geology degree from LSU taught Petroleum Geology, Petroleum Production Methods, Petroleum Utilization, and Petroleum Cost Accounting. As a part of his expansion of the geology department, Howe began the search for a professional engineer who could fill the gaps in the program and give students the practical knowledge that would be essential in the oil field. To this end, he added to his staff a young Californian with a background in mining engineering. This young engineer, Benjamin Cole Craft, came to LSU straight out of Stanford’s graduate program in 1929.
Although some confusion exists regarding the date when petroleum engineering at LSU changed from merely a program to an independent department, sources indicate that, in the early years, the program was overseen directly by Howe. However, Benny Craft, as the sole engineer in the School of Geology, was responsible for the development of the petroleum engineering program. The choice Howe made in selecting Craft as an assistant professor of petroleum engineering reflects Howe’s philosophy toward the curriculum. Craft was both a pioneer in his field and a down-to-earth, practical engineer. These two facets of Craft’s professional personality became the backbone of the petroleum engineering program, and, evidently, were in tune with the future that Howe had envisioned for this segment of the School of Geology.
Craft had a monumental task ahead of him when he arrived at LSU. At the age of twenty-five, he was responsible for creating a series of courses that had never before existed and for developing the class materials for those courses. Few specific petroleum engineering courses existed anywhere, and no texts had yet been written. Though petroleum engineering departments existed at other universities (e.g. University of Pittsburgh, 1912; University of California, 1915; and Stanford, 1921), no program stood among the rest as a model for future development, and courses still covered very little material specific to petroleum. Moreover, geology at LSU was undergoing a metamorphosis, changing from a tiny department with one faculty member to a major academic entity with several areas of specialization, and Craft was expecte4d to work on his own. To further complicate his task, Craft was responsible not only to Dr. Howe and the School of Geology but also to the dean of the College of Engineering because the petroleum engineering program was administered jointly by the School of Geology and the College of Engineering.
Creating the petroleum courses and generating class materials required hard work and the abilities to recognize valid areas of instruction and to communicate with a variety of people. From the very beginning of his tenure with LSU, Craft traveled extensively during the summers and contacted people all over the county who were involved in the petroleum industry to collect technical information for his classes. He gathered materials and information from engineers in the field, researchers in the laboratories, and managers in the main offices, picking up whatever insights he could from a wide range of industry personnel. His efforts paid off, establishing the basis for a broad engineering background for LSU students and putting the new courses he created on the cutting edge of petroleum technology.
Much of the technology in the field of petroleum engineering was just beginning to be produced when Craft took on the task of developing the new LSU curriculum. Students who were enrolled in the department during those early days were taught from pamphlets, technical publications, and interoffice memos that Craft gleaned during his visits with oil company personnel. One of the early students describes Craft’s efforts: “He [Craft] fought the battle of building one block on top of another and trying to keep students right up-to-date with what was going on in the oil patch and, not only that, but in research.” As soon as new ideas, such as flow through porous media, came out in the technical publications, Craft started teaching them in his classes via mimeographed copies and library reading assignments.
Besides the difficulty of gathering lecture materials and teaching aids for the new curriculum, the complex nature of the system controlling the program also presented a challenge for Craft. He was on his own in mediating between two very different administrative bodies at LSU. Although the petroleum engineering program was officially a segment of the School of Geology, students in petroleum engineering were required to matriculate through the College of Engineering. Therefore, in the early days of the program, classes had to conform to two sets of teaching philosophies and accreditation standards.
By 1930, the petroleum engineering curriculum had evolved from strictly additional geology and chemistry courses to the inclusion of basic engineering courses and specific petroleum engineering courses. The courses offered in petroleum engineering dramatically increased from four in 1927 to 11 in 1930, and the number of semester hours required for a degree in petroleum engineering increased from 72 to 143 during the same period. The stringent new program included intensive course work in both geology and engineering.
The complexity of this new curriculum led students to consider themselves “halfers”: half in geology and half in engineering. The designation of “halfers” was not an indication, however, that petroleum engineers under Benny Craft felt displaced. To the contrary, Craft’s students became a close-knit group with a string sense of identity. According to one former student, Craft was responsible for this sense of identity by insisting that his students were engineers – not geologists. His determination to produce engineers despite the program’s heavy saturation of geology courses and close affiliation with the School of Geology gave his students a strong awareness of their positions and alleviated the “stepchild” feeling that inevitably arose from the cross-discipline nature of the program.
Most of the students in the early years of the program came from similar backgrounds: they, like most people in Louisiana during the 1930’s were poor and were generally from rural areas. They were also determined to make the most of their opportunity to attend college. No formal scholarships were available through the university in the early days of the petroleum engineering program, and most of the students worked after classes and during the summer breaks. Student loans were available at 3% interest, and expenses were relatively low. According to one 1936 graduate, a good meal at the university cafeteria cost about twenty-five cents. However, for students from rural areas, the opportunity to attend the university required a high degree of personal sacrifice in terms of time and money. Benny Craft was aware of this sacrifice and attempted to find ways to help those students who seemed on the verge of giving up the idea of a college education.
Mark Krause was one such student. Krause came to LSU to fulfill not only his own dream but also that of his father. Mark’s father had known Howe when Howe worked in north Louisiana on a petroleum-related project, and the elder Krause admired the LSU professor. Because he admired Howe and was also fascinated with the oil business, Krause wanted his son to go to college to become a geologist or a petroleum engineer. Mark came to LSU on a student loan and worked in odd-jobs during his first three years of college. However, he ran out of money before his senior year and dropped out of LSU. He was working on a job taking up old pipeline when he received a letter from Benny Craft. Craft offered him a job in one of the laboratories in the School of Geology, enabling Mark to return to school.
Whenever the need arose, Benny Craft seemed able to motivate his students. At Craft’s suggestion, students met late in the evenings after their classes and jobs to discuss problems and prepare for tests. Frequently, Craft dropped in on these sessions to answer questions and to help with any difficulties that might arise. For the most part, students helped each other; working difficult calculus problems on the blackboard and sharing ideas about the day’s lectures. However, former students recall Benny Craft standing in the back of the class, silently lending his support and approval.
Like many parents, Craft worked hard to juggle his dedication to his profession and loyalty to his students with his responsibility to his family. Typically, according to Bertha Craft, he would spend his day teaching and taking care of the administration of the program. He would dash home for dinner with is family around five and return to LSU around seven or eight to attend the study sessions. Around eleven in the evening he would go home and would often wake one of his two sons to play, much to his young wife’s dismay. Today, the department and his two sons are all successful, which seems a fitting tribute to his ability to balance his roles as a dedicated educator and as a good father.
In addition to the late evening study sessions, students in the department found other activities to occupy their time. Campus life for students during the 1930s included many facets: military, academic, extramural, and intramural. Petroleum engineering students in the early years found time for such extracurricular activities as intramural baseball (within the College of Engineering, of course) despite the demands of heavy course loads and work schedules. Also within the department in those early years were several students who played football for the university: Jeff Barrett and Wardell Liesk, for example. As these activities suggest, students in the early days of the petroleum engineering department were encouraged to move outside the walls of academia to become well-rounded individuals. Campus activities, then as now, provided the basis for bonding students from different areas of the state together in a cohesive unit.
One of the most enduring organizations in which petroleum engineering students participated was the Geological and Mining Society of American Universities, a professional/honorary organization that was founded at Stanford University. The Louisiana section of the G & M Society, as it was called, was established on the LSU campus in 1927. For many years, the G & M Society was the only professional organization on campus that was available for petroleum engineers. During the 1940s, the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers created a chapter on campus, but AIME had a fitful start, becoming inactive in 1946 and not reviving until 1949. The student chapter of AIME/SPE did not become really active until 1958-59, after the department moved out of the School of Geology and into the College of Engineering.
The geologists and the G & M Society accepted the petroleum engineers without reservation and included them in all the ritual and ceremony that accompanied membership in the society. The most notorious of the G & M Society’s activities was an annual initiation banquet at which the students presented some unusual programs. At one of these events, selected students who were dressed like janitors told stories about the after-hours lives of faculty in the School of Geology. At another, the guest speaker roasted the petroleum engineering faculty particularly, giving them nicknames such as “Crafty Benny,” “The Hawk,” and “Gravely Ernest.” Frequently after these banquets, member gathered for an informal “tradition”: the annual poker game which often lasted until the early hours of the morning.
Despite this annual mischief, the School of Geology supported the G & M Society fully. For years, from the inception of the School of Geology in 1931 until the catalog issue of 1959, which was the second issue after the department moved into the College of Engineering, the catalog description of the School of Geology included a section, “HONOR SYSTEM.” This section acknowledges peer regulation by the society: “All examinations in the professional courses of the School of Geology are conducted on the honor system and all infringements are handled by a committee of the Louisiana Section of the Geological and Mining Society of American Universities.” This system of peer regulation was reportedly very effective in preventing academic dishonesty. In addition to effectively curbing the temptation to cheat, the statement indicates the high level of interaction between students, faculty, and administration that was encouraged within the School of Geology and the petroleum engineering department.
Besides the academic, athletic, and social activities of early petroleum engineering students, most students at the university were required to participate in military drills unless they were exempted for medical reasons. Louisiana State University was established in 1853 as a military academy as well as a “Seminary of Learning,” and the tradition of military training was still very strong during the 1930s. Therefore, most early petroleum engineering graduates had the option of taking military commissions when they left the university. Many petroleum engineering graduates server their country in fulfillment of their commissions.
One 1942 graduate of the department who served in World War II was Alex Box. Raised in Laurel, Mississippi, Box came to LSU in 1938, declining a major league baseball offer in factor of a college education and an athletic scholarship. At LSU, he made a name for himself as an excellent athlete, playing football until he dislocated his shoulder and then lettering in baseball in 1940 and 1942. Box also served as the vice president of the junior class in engineering. After graduation, he took his commission in the U. S. Army and was sent to North Africa. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his part is destroying six German machine gun nests and a howitzer. He was promoted to first lieutenant on February 1, 1943; shortly after on February 19, 1943, he was killed when a mine destroyed his tank. Although tragic, the story of Alex Box serves as both an example of the high quality of students who attend LSU and a reminder that training the mind, the body, and the spirit were emphasized in the early days of the department.
The activities in which petroleum engineers participated were important to their social and academic growth, but Benny Craft stressed the need for practical field experience, as well. The first year after Craft joined LSU, this statement was added to the LSU general catalog: “It is expected that the students following this course will spend the last two summers of the college course in some form of employment in the production side of the oil business. The Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association maintains an employment bureau through which the students may obtain these positions.” Because the geology summer field camp was also required and was usually taken during the final summer, petroleum engineers had no time, not even summer, to become bored.
Table of Contents
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Copyright 1993 by LSU Department of Petroleum Engineering.
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