What The Funk?

0:00 Hey, oh, we are back with JO. Joshua Owens. What's up? How you doing, man? I'm good, man. Good to be here. Excited to talk about what the funk. Yeah, what the funk is going on and what the

0:16 funk is going on with our weather right now, too. I know you're not here in Colorado, although we initially, I think, first met in Colorado, one of the Digilog Catter's energy tech nights last

0:26 summer. But it is snowing out here It is 30 degrees, my screen says. It's been perfect, like spring weather, 70 degrees, time to turn on your sprinklers. And then, you know, 70, 70, 70,

0:41 boom, all of a sudden, it's 30 and snowing and hard. And it's going to be like this for most of the weekend. So anyways. Like this weather, man. Colorado gets weird. I think April might be our

0:52 snowiest month.

0:55 We get some weird weather out here, which is. just part of the beauty of living in Colorado. But I don't mind it. I'd rather have rain than snow personally and I like to ski. So dude, as of

1:06 yesterday, I officially have two teenage daughters. What did I do to myself? Oh man, I'm not envious of that at all. I think you got a couple boys and we'll get into all that stuff. But you know,

1:19 I have to hit you with the question that I hit everybody with out of the gate is, Who are you, man? Who's Josh Owens? Yeah, man, well, Josh Owens, co-founder and CEO of MLink. And I've spent

1:33 over 20 years in the oil and gas industry working in field operations, a corporate environment. But more importantly, I'm a dad. I'm a father of two boys. I got a 13 year old and a nine year old.

1:47 I love baseball. I love getting outside and hitting the ball with them. And I'm lucky to have a beautiful wife that keeps me around it Love to hear it, man. Yep. Yep, family first, right,

1:60 business, entrepreneurship. One A, maybe, maybe a second, especially with the stage that you guys are at. Well, we'll get into Venling and all that good stuff, but let's go back. So where are

2:09 you from? Where'd you grow up? Where'd you grow to school and talk about breaking into one of the guys? Yeah, so I'm a West Coast boy. My dad was in the military. So grew up all over the West

2:23 Coast, spent time in Las Vegas, San Diego, Arizona, my dad was in the military. So he was in the Indian Health Service. And so we moved around a lot,

2:35 kind of blue collar family. I'm the oldest of seven kids. Whoa. Yeah, yeah. So my dad was busy. I can only imagine only having two kids myself. I mean, I can only imagine how stressed he was

2:50 about money. And so we moved around a lot, looking for a better opportunity. But I guess, what my freshman year of high school moved to the Dallas area. Oh. And that's where my dad, you know,

3:03 really made a career in the oil and gas industry. So he's a civil engineer by trade, but started doing, working for Chesapeake actually, back in like

3:16 2003, doing a lot of their infrastructure and design for what they call the water, the Barnett Shell Water Pipeline project. Nice And I had to think back there, that's been a minute. It's been

3:30 20 years. Yeah, so yeah, man, I had a

3:36 really humble upbringing, I would say, being the oldest of seven kids. And by the time I was out of the house, my little brother was, he's 12 years younger than me. So there's a big spread

3:47 between the oldest and the youngest.

3:51 And I would say it's completely different lifestyle like my younger brother, you know. you know, got a car when he was 16, you know, all the cool things that kids get when their dad has a good

4:04 job in the oil and gas industry.

4:08 But really feel grateful, you know, for the industry itself. I think the last thing you want to do as a 40-year-old adult with old parents is have to take care of your parents. We're

4:24 really lucky that

4:27 he was able to make something for himself in the industry. Oh, that's really neat. So you got to see that first hand, right? Dad gets a gig in oil and gas. You grew up on the West Coast, but

4:38 get kind of immersed into it and in Dallas and Barnet Shale. Still a pretty big natural gas field today. So, you know, probably more infrastructure than there was 20 some odd years ago,

4:51 nonetheless. But I want to talk about up at the family dynamics. I'm the middle of of three. And yeah, man, I cannot imagine what it was like the seven and you're the oldest. So I think there

5:03 probably has to be some like really unique personalities from one through seven. What's the breakdown with boys and girls and how different are you than the youngest, who's I guess like over a

5:16 decade younger? Yeah, I mean, that's an interesting question. So I can say, you know, growing up in a big family, you know, everyone has everyone in my family had strong personalities. So if

5:28 you get us together today, you know, there's a lot of bickering and fighting and, you know, we're all individual. I think we can all relate, you know, to the stresses and, you know, that's

5:40 one good thing about growing up in a family. You can look back and think about like all the things you hated about your parents and you relate to that. But

5:49 I have three sisters. I have three brothers. Like I said, there's a big spread me and my little brother, but being the oldest, you know, I look back and learned

6:06 a lot of discipline in my life. I had to grow up quick at the end of the day. You know, I didn't have parents that were, you know, taking me to colleges when I graduated and, you know, I was

6:19 expected to be self-sufficient at an early age, right? And so I've kind of carried that with me through my career. I've never really, you know, there wasn't anything in my mind. I couldn't fail,

6:34 I guess. I, you know, there's an option like it was distilled in me at a young age that like, this is kind of the expectation and you need to be self-sufficient and you need to take care of your

6:46 younger siblings as well and be an example to them, you know. And I feel honored that I think if you ask my dad and my mom, you know, I lived up to that. Are you their favorite? I wouldn't say

6:59 I'm their favorite,

7:01 I was a little bit of a, I think part of being the oldest and being independent, I was a little bit of a wild child, I got into trouble at an early age, I got it all out of my system in high

7:11 school, but you know I've always maintained good grades and I had a job and you know kind heart and,

7:21 but I learned a lot of, I probably gave my dad, you know, I'm surprised he didn't have a few heart attacks when I was in high school. I, I gave him a hard time. I mean, it would be hard enough

7:32 as it is to manage the finances for a family of nine. Um, and like, I don't even know what kind of houses are built for families that big. Um, but you must have lived in one. So, uh, they

7:46 probably didn't mind when you had to move out, right? Where'd you end up going to school? So, so, you know, kind of an interesting twist to, you know, part of a lot of my background is I

7:56 actually grew up LDS. So, you know, grew up in the LDS Mormon church and,

8:04 you know, faith and family was, you know, a big part of my childhood. Sure. And so when I turned, you know, 18, I was expected to go on a LDS mission. Right. Right, that's what my parents

8:16 were pushing for. And I wasn't quite ready yet. So I ended up working for a surveying company out of Denton called, I think it was called Metroplex Serving, and we did drill site plots for the oil

8:29 industry. And that's really how I got emergent oil and gas. That evolved into a document specialist. And

8:40 so I did school off and on. I didn't really know what I wanted to be when I grew up. I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up. I was gonna say, you think you do now? No, I mean, I

8:50 think it's ever evolving. But at the time, I knew I needed to go get an education So, um. I ended up going to community college for

9:01 a year. Started learning a little bit more about myself, becoming more independent, having to pay for things. And really thought about my upbringing and ended up going back to my roots and serving

9:15 an LDS mission in Tampa, Florida.

9:20 So it was an awesome part of my life. I think it really helped ground me and who I am today. And

9:30 there's nothing like riding a bike with a white shirt in 100 degree humid weather in Florida, right, knocking on doors. So it definitely makes you tough. Yeah, you know, a couple LDS guys showed

9:44 up at my door the other day, but I was on a call and I could see them through the window and I just shook my head. No, I can't do it right now. And they're just like, all right, yeah. And

9:52 they're like, now I'll come back later. I'm like, no. But anyways, so I'm Jewish, right? And there's actually some interesting parallels between I think Judaism and LDS and Mormons. Like

10:09 there's an innate and instilled like work ethic that comes from that. If you look, I don't have like the data to back this up, but apparently Mormons are like the most successful financial

10:21 religious group and Jews are second Again, no data to back this up. I've heard it, I'm sticking with it. But I do believe that there's a couple of reasons that Mormons are super successful. I

10:32 think some of that has to do with not drinking any alcohol. I think some of it is like teaching that discipline through the missions at a younger age. And, you know, it also kind of explains a

10:44 bigger family, right? I think that's also part of like the culture and the tradition there. So very cool. Yeah, yeah, well, it's we have actually kind of a mixed family now, so my wife is

10:54 Jewish.

10:56 So yeah, so we, uh, you know, we have a interesting mix. We kind of have our own culture in our house with our kids where we celebrate both Hanukkah and Christmas. Um, but it makes, you know,

11:06 uh, for an exciting time over the holidays. Yeah. So you guys have all the money, man. Mormons and Jews. Like you got it all figured out. Now that's, that's neat. How is it viewed? Like from

11:18 a family perspective, did they want you to marry a Mormon? Was it weird or look down upon that you married somebody, not just outside of the faith, but like somebody Jewish? Oh man, I think, um,

11:28 you know, I probably get in trouble for saying this out loud, but I remember, you know, after telling my, my dad, hey, you know, this, this is the girl I'm bringing home, uh, it's kind of

11:39 an uproar, right? They're like, what are you doing? Like this isn't, this isn't what we had planned for you, right? But, uh, you know, I, I was in love, right? Young kid in love and, um,

11:49 you know, I could see all the good qualities in her And for me, you know. even though I was raised, you know, very black and white, there's a lot of gray in my mind, right? And so a lot of the

12:04 things that I learned on my mission was really, you know, how to listen to other people and how to appreciate other people for who they are. And, you know, I feel lucky to have a beautiful wife

12:15 that is part of another faith. I think it's really brought a lot of perspective into my own life and, you know, helped me be more understanding, more understanding person from a cultural

12:27 perspective. Yeah, and I think just even like, from an education perspective, like you've probably learned a lot, right? Now you kind of have like a pretty good understanding of a couple

12:36 religions. I've talked about this on this podcast before, but it's always fascinating to me. So my grandfather on my dad's side was a rabbi. And in the Jewish faith, there's like, you know,

12:51 there's conservative, and then there's Orthodox. And Orthodox is what you see with like the payers and wearing like the TC. and all that stuff. Like in the Diamond District of New York City,

13:02 right? The extreme religious type. So my grandfather was conservative, like conservative rabbi, like pretty serious. Like, you know, they didn't

13:13 really use electricity on the weekends. They would like tear toilet paper prior to the weekends Like, really kind of observe the Sabbath. My dad, the first son, the oldest son of a rabbi. He met

13:27 my mom, fell in love with her at a relatively young age. She came from a Greek Orthodox family in Massachusetts. And there was definitely uproar on both sides for that. My mom's family was pissed

13:41 that she was gonna marry a Jewish guy My dad's parents were. had a strong preference that he married somebody Jewish, but I think they accepted that, well, this is his path and he's in love. They

13:54 actually had two separate weddings because the families wouldn't go to each other's weddings. So at different time, very bizarre. My mom ultimately converted two Judaism just to do the one faith

14:06 thing in the house

14:09 and converted and became like the cantor at the temple. And now speaks Hebrew a little bit and all that stuff. So it's pretty cool, but growing up, you visit one side and they do Christmas and you

14:22 visit the other side and they do Hanukkah. And it's confusing, I think, as a kid a little bit. But then eventually you realize, No, this is actually good. It gives you exposure to very

14:31 different things from religious perspective. Yeah, I mean, it's very distinct. If you go to my side of the family, there's no alcohol, no drinking, like, you know, um, Um, uh, On the other

14:42 side of my family, the Jewish side of my family, you know, a lot of alcohol, a lot of Drake had a lot of fun. Like, and so, um, you know, like, my kids get to see both of that. Fahrenheit

14:53 and they get like nine days of presence. If there's no overlap with, uh, Hanukkah and Christmas. So that's lucky for them. They have, they have, they have Jewish and Mormon grandparents. So

15:03 they get spoiled for sure. Oh my God. That's awesome. Um, so yeah, talk about your path a little bit then too. So you worked for Chesapeake, but, um, right? Was that your first kind of job

15:13 after your, your mission and all that stuff? Yeah. So, you know, I, um, so I, I did a, actually I went back to BYU. So I did a year of BYU. I, um, after my mission, um, you know, that

15:26 was where every Mormon goes, right? Or wants to go. Yeah, it's a good school too. Yeah, it's a fantastic school. I mean, great education, um, I was a mechanical engineering major at the time.

15:38 And, um, but it wasn't for me. You know, I was, I wanted to come back to Texas.

15:45 Also followed my wife back to Texas. So I met her through a friend doing an internship at HDR engineering. Can't remember what summer that is, but I was working with my buddy, John, and he

15:58 introduced me to this girl, Jordan, and she went to Texas Tech and, you know, I was like, man, I got a gun job girl. Yeah, yeah, get my guns up, get ready for this But, yeah, no, she was

16:10 a love of my life. She followed her to Texas Tech and the rest is history, so. Nice, nice. So, you root for BYU, you root for Texas Tech. Like, what's your sports fandom? Oh, man, I'm a

16:26 Texas Tech guy, but funny enough, I'm about to go back to school. So, going to about to be a Longhorn. Wow, look at you, man. I'm gonna have to go like, you know, I guess I can't go like

16:38 this, people are going to be like, what is this guy doing?

16:43 And for people that are that are just listening on this, he's he's throwing up the horns and he's throwing the guns up. I don't know. Go to go to AM. You throw up your thumb. It's Texas man. The

16:54 culture down there and the history and uniqueness is one of a kind. So

16:59 when did you start? It was Chesapeake, your first job in oil and gas? Yeah. So I started out of the surveying stuff that you did before that Yeah. So I was what, 2008, it was during the big gas

17:11 boom. So I talked about my dad, right? So he was, you know, he had ties to the industry. So, you know, my dad always made sure I had a job, like since then I was like 10 years old, right?

17:22 Like you, he made sure I was working. Like I said, that's a big part of my history is distilling that work ethic. But

17:30 after my internship, after BYU, he gave me a call, he knew I was struggling with money. And he said, hey, you know, I got this, this gig. You can work for. for as a land man. I had no idea

17:41 what a land man was. Like,

17:44 and come to find out, man, I thought it was the best job a person could ever have. Like, at the time I was, I think it was 2008, I was negotiating

17:54 surface use agreements, you know, making a day rate of500 a day you, know, seven days a week. As a young guy. Yeah, I mean, 21, 22 years old, you know, pulling in over a hundred K a year

18:07 And I'll tell you what, that can get, that can get you into trouble real quick.

18:13 How did you not save any money from that time, right? You look back and you're like, where did that go? Well, I mean, that's one of the big lessons learned, you know, I mean, in the oil and

18:21 gas industry, it's all cyclical. So, you know, gas was at what went up to like12 at MCF and then just tanked, right? And we had 30 of us, they laid it, I mean, I remember that day I came into

18:33 the office. I thought my job was going to last forever, you know I was like, I'm about to buy a house, I'm about to buy a new car. next thing you know, I'm walking into the office and we're all

18:42 getting laid off, right? And then that's actually when I chose to go back to school. So I went back to tech and finished my

18:49 degree. Got it. Yeah, that, I mean, what a time that was. So that's around when I broke into oil and gas myself. You know, my background has been in technology sales. Undergrad, I was a

19:04 double major in history in American studies and coming from New England, dude, I didn't know anything about oil and gas. So I knew I was like, personable, knew I wanted to get into sales. I

19:13 moved out here to Boulder, was in kind of the startup tech sales environment for about five years. This recruiter calls me up. It's like, Hey, you want to work in selling software to oil and gas?

19:24 I'm like, I don't know about this. Like, is this even a good industry for me? Again, they're like, well, you know, it's pretty expensive at the pump right now. So my first day on the job,

19:35 God man, I want to say I could look up the exact numbers of the date. January, what, seven, eighth, nine, something like that of 2008. Like natural gas was at like all time highs, still all

19:48 time highs. Maybe all time highs that will, it will ever be. Um, and oil was like 130 something dollars a barrel. Man, that was the best job ever. And I, of course, like bought a BMW, at

19:60 least to BMW. I couldn't afford about a few months in and then six months later, everybody's getting laid off when everything crashes to the ground I'm like, maybe I shouldn't have, like, got a

20:09 BMW, you know, but pretty cool to see the ups and downs. And certainly I've learned a lot. And, you know, now you're on the tech side and we'll get into that a little bit too. I do think there

20:21 is a sweet spot for tech and it's not when prices are at all time highs. Companies are too busy when things are good. You know, the question isn't, will you make a profit? It's how much? So

20:33 slowing down and trying to be, you know, optimal in terms of efficiencies and technologies is not the game. And then when prices crash to all time lows or close to all, you know, historic lows,

20:48 then you don't have any money to spend on technology, right? So there is a sweet spot in there somewhere, probably in the 60 to 80 range, maybe four to six or maybe three to five for MCF on on gas,

21:01 where companies really can actually think a little bit more strategically versus just like blow and go or hunker down and lay everybody off. So we're kind of in that mode right now. The issue is

21:13 when things crash quickly, like they have of late, it's hard to have that outlook of like now is the time for us to optimize, right? You get kind of nervous, like, what are we going to do? But

21:23 then you know that the next boom is coming at some point, especially with this administration in place. So it'll be interesting to see. So you really got it firsthand, like you're crushing it,

21:32 young guy making all this money, traveling all over the Place500 a day.

21:38 And then, sorry, man, you don't have a job. Where you're like, fuck, I'm not gonna do weight tables. Like, what'd you do? It goes through your brain. Everything goes through your head at

21:46 that point, right? Like, I think you learn to be resilient though. I don't think I could be an entrepreneur without going through some of those life lessons.

21:56 But I think, I mean, the first thing they went through in my head is, man, I gotta go back and get my education. Right? Yeah. And you did. So I did. And your education, was it focused at

22:07 that point then on oil and gas, like, did you know you want to have a career 'cause of what you saw in your time as a layman? I mean, I figured it would be most likely, right? I remember having

22:16 this debate with my dad 'cause, you know, it was like being an engineer, a doctor, right? Back to, you know, growing up more money. Like, you're like, engineer, doctor, dentist. It's like,

22:27 Jews with being a lawyer or a doctor. There wasn't like, and that was my thought to him. Like, well, I don't want to be a doctor, so I guess he'll be a lawyer.

22:35 Yeah, so that was actually my original plan as a lawyer. Like, I saw my dad's brother have lots of money and my father-in-law's an attorney. And so, that's kind of like the natural route. I

22:48 always wanted to get education. But funny enough, life throws you some twists and turns. And

22:56 my wife and I ended up, she had actually graduated. She graduated before me and we had moved in together and ended up having our first kid before I graduated. I was an old student. I was 26 when I

23:10 actually graduated with my undergrad. But I had my oldest child at Tech, my senior year of college. So that year, I actually switched my major from mechanical engineering to accounting. Well, I

23:26 know. My

23:29 thought process was like, I just got to go to work I have some of this good experience. We'll have to pick back up. like, hey, man, I can go get a job. And so I probably have the hardest

23:39 accounting degree that you could probably get. Like, I think all, at Tech, you had, you were allowed 22 electabourers, which is crazy. But all those electives were Calc 1, Calc 2, physics 1,

23:52 physics 2, thermodynamics. So I look back and I'm like, man, I, you know, what did I do to myself? But the more important thing was, I was one of the most stressful times in my life. I had a

24:04 new baby. I didn't have a job. I had just, you know, I was about to graduate. And I still remember that day, like it was yesterday. I had done a bunch of oil companies came up to, you know,

24:18 tech. And I had done a bunch of interviews. And I was kind of waiting to hear back like, hey, what, you know, am I going to get a job? Am I going to land something? You know, I have no money.

24:26 I'm basically living off student loans at this point And I had taken our fur - my mom had - watched our oldest kid and we'd taken a trip to Seattle to visit my wife's uncle. And I remember getting a

24:41 call from Occidental Petroleum that day saying, hey, you know, you passed the drug test, you did all this stuff, like, we're, you know, we're about to deposit a bonus into your account, right?

24:55 And I mean, I think both my wife and I

24:58 cried that day just 'cause it was a big relief to know that we had a job lined up and that I could take care of my family. And so, off to Houston, we were, man, like, and that's where I got into

25:11 the corporate side of things. Yeah, so that's cool. So you had, you know, Chesapeake, big, grown company, God, they had, I don't know, 100 rigs, you know, at their peak and drilling in

25:22 every basin possible, go back to school, you have a kid, you get an accounting degree, and then you're here at Oxy, you're in Houston, Oxy is a great company, right? Um, still is warm buffed

25:35 ons a ton of it now. Um, and, and you're starting

25:41 restarting re restarting. Really your career. Now at this point reinventing yourself as an oil and gas accountant. That's right. Yeah. So that, this is interesting. So you have a, like a

25:49 pretty broad view and lens, I would say, of oil and gas. Right. Cause you've been in the field, right? You understand the land and the document side of things. And now here you're pushed into

26:00 accounting and eventually somewhere you got to help in safety, which we'll talk about soon. So talk about, OXI, what period of time are we talking about? And then I think from there was parsley

26:11 for you, right? Yeah. So actually, it was what, 2000, I don't know, 11, 12, 13, trying to think of the exact dates. Those were good times, man. Those were good times. Yeah, great times.

26:23 I mean, you know, big bonuses. Oil is good. I

26:30 all sorts of different accounting, production accounting, to joint interest billing, to revenue accounting. So the way that OXI trained you to kind of rotational, you know, program. That's

26:42 about us for the record. And I can say from the recruiting side of things with funk futures, it's hard because, you know, it's like we need a revenue accountant that has experience in, you know,

26:56 tribal areas in Oklahoma that needs to come into the office that's willing to take this kind of, and it's like, whoa, it's like very specific in niche. So having a versatile it, and you talk to,

27:08 you know, someone who's an accounting manager or a GIB account, they're not a revenue manager. They're not a revenue account, right? So you actually got like a lot of, like on the job training

27:20 to really understand how all of the finances flow, all the taxes, all the accounting You're. absolutely right. I mean, I got lucky to understand how, really how.

27:33 you finance an oil company at the end of the day and how you account for it. And it's definitely a good skill set. Had an opportunity to move out to California. So basically, you know, Oxy, I

27:45 remember 2012, 2013, they spun off their California asset, created its own publicly traded company called California Resources Corporation. CRC, CRC. Still exists today

27:58 and ended up, that's when I really started getting more into the technology side. So

28:05 when they spun off that asset, we ended up having to stand up our own accounting systems. And we were on Oracle, I think it was like Oracle R12, that's what they called it, had Oxy. And we had

28:16 to stand up an SAP product, 'cause that's what they used in California. So,

28:22 you know, it was really instrumental in building out the revenue accounting department team there And, uh,

28:31 you know, really started diving into systems and technology and processes and inefficiencies. And when they spun off that asset, you know, we had a little team with a lot of production and we had

28:46 to leverage technology to not work extended hours, right? To be overworked. Accountants are already underpaid, but you want to minimize how much you can overwork

28:57 Definitely a different asset too. Like, you know, the declines on the oil wells in California are very different than the declines on the newer shale plays, right? 1, 000 barrels a day at an IP

29:13 and all of a sudden you're 300 barrels in dropping, whereas in California that some of these can produce 12 barrels a day forever, right? Just for heavy oil, right?

29:24 It's that thick, murky, you can't survive about 50, 60s, You know, it's got to be in the 70 80s, right? So yeah, just with all the. science and chemistry and all that that goes into the

29:33 processing of it.

29:37 Sorry about that, I had to take a brief pause because the smoke alarm in my house was going off, but we are back. Anyways, we're talking about California, what some people might know or don't

29:46 know is the person who ran that California asset, it was Vicki Hallop, who is now the CEO of Oxygen, a bit of like a celebrity in oil and gas, I would say. Yeah, I mean, what's interesting, if

29:59 you look at a lot of the old executives or even the new executives, they all worked on the California asset at some point, or off, or, you know,

30:08 in the Middle East, right? So all those executives, all the executives I worked for back at CRC, they all came from old school, Oxygen.

30:19 Got it, got it. Yep, smoke alarm's still going off here, but my house isn't burning down, fairly certain of that.

30:26 Nice, nice. So also for you, you got to go back home, I guess, back to California, kind of revisit some of your youth. Like, that must have been fun. Oh, man, you know, people dog on

30:36 Bakersfield. It's the armpit, for sure, of California. But it's so awesome that you're close to so many things, right? Like, I mean, we had little kids at the time, too. And I mean, there's

30:45 nothing like, you know, every other Friday off hitting the road, going to Malibu Beach with the kids and spending all week. And it was definitely one of the best times of my life. I like

30:57 Bakersfield. I mean, not a terrible flight from Denver, either tiny airport, you show up 40 minutes before your flight, you get on, you know, no, there's like two places to eat. Maybe it's

31:06 different now. I haven't been in a few years, but yeah. I mean, if you can extend those Baco trips to go to LA, right, and hit the beach, you can really make the most of it. And anyways, I

31:19 mean, yeah, sure, it's the armpit of California, but you still see some palm trees and you know, you're not far from everything else. And it's got its kind of own, you know, insulated oil and

31:28 gas personality. Oh, it's amazing because it was, you know, I think when we left Houston, my wife's from Houston, so when we left Houston, she cried, when we moved to Bakersfield, and she

31:39 cried when we left Bakersfield. She had become so close, there's so many expats and like just, you know, it is an awesome culture. And the all reason I said it's an armpit, 'cause if you've ever,

31:51 I mean, most people don't have never seen this, but I mean, if you've seen the rolling hills of oil rigs, right, like it is, it's wild, right? You don't realize how much oil is in California

32:02 until you see that. It was like nothing I've ever seen the first time. Yeah, that was really, really something. And then even like, you know, when you visit some of these companies, like their

32:12 headquarters is in a double-eyed, like - That's right, yeah. And you're parking - You're a million dollar company, right? Yeah, you're parking your rental car in the fog, super like foggy

32:23 smoggy out there, and your car starts beeping and you realize,

32:28 three feet away from a pumpjack, maybe I should reverse a little bit too, because it's just everywhere out there, right? Like in parking lots and high schools and obviously in the fields, tons

32:39 going on. So did you go from oxy, those must have been good years at oxy, a lot of growth, right? CRC spinning up. Did you go from there to parsley and move to Austin? Is that what happened?

32:50 Yeah, so I was actually from the fog and they would shake the almond trees and bakers filled. And man, my allergies just got so bad that I was getting sick. Like, wow. Yeah, and my wife is

33:02 homesick. We didn't have any family there, right? All of our family, my parents were in Dallas, her family was in Houston. And so

33:16 we really wanted to get back to Texas and have grandma and grandpa around, right? Like to have Fridays to ourselves. And so. We started looking for jobs, you know, and I wanted to do something

33:28 outside of accounting. I mean, if you're an accountant, at least from my perspective, I spent 10 years, you know, in accounting, dreaming about doing something else,

33:39 you know. And so I

33:43 really, I started throwing resumes out, like the good old fashioned way. And I came across a, you know, I didn't, everybody wants to live in Austin I think that's the, you know, consensus. I

33:54 think that's one reason why I'm partially set up shop here is to recruit employees. But man, I didn't even know that there would be an oil company in Austin, right? And so when I started looking

34:07 at, I knew exactly I wanted to work for a small oil company that either pre IPO or like had just gone public. I wanted to get out of accounting, but I wanted to use my background in land and.

34:24 accounting finance to do something different. And

34:29 ended up finding this position at Parzley working for the General Counsel.

34:35 As name's Colin Roberts, he was the GC for Parzley to Parzley Public. And this was

34:44 back in

34:46 2016. They had, Parzley had just experienced their first catastrophic loss, which was a three man fatality Three generations. Oh God. Yeah, it really rocked the company. And

35:03 to Parzley's credit, they wanted to do the right thing. They wanted to enhance their third party risk management program. And so they had posted a job that they called it a business coordinator,

35:15 but it had a lot of like, okay, you're gonna work with vendors. You're gonna do stuff with contracts I'm gonna work and report directly to the GC. you're going to be involved in creating and

35:26 implementing controls since we just went public. And so I was like, wow, this might be a good fit, you know? And so I threw my resume out there and and

35:36 landed the job. And I was super excited. I remember coming to Austin and you know, being a West Coast boy,

35:46 I still prefer that dry weather, right? Like it's humid here still in Austin, right? Sticky. Sticky. And I came out here to interview. And I remember, you know, the interview went great. And

35:57 I was like, man, I bet you were going to end up moving back to Austin or back to Texas. And I went out at like 1130 that night, walked to Sixth Street, grabbed some tacos. And by the time I got

36:09 back to my, my room, I was just drenched. Yeah. And I was thinking in my head, like, do I really want to come back to Texas?

36:20 Yeah, got to get used to sweating a lot. boy. And air condition everywhere. Yeah. So, but you did. And obviously a great culture. I know some people that were at that company that built great

36:34 careers, you know, the Green Lake team now, you know, kind of wanted to recapture some of that culture. And at some point, what parsley sold to Pioneer? That's right. Yeah. I mean, they

36:46 hired a lot of high performers, you know, I mean, I call it the parsley mafia. I mean, they just, you look now and there's a lot of, you know, the executives and the leadership team that have

36:57 gone on and done their own ventures and, you know, me included, right? And the parsley experience, though, was one of a kind. You know, I contribute a lot of my success and,

37:12 you know, of the direction I went of being an entrepreneur to my parsley experience your partner at VenLink who you met there. So Take me through when, when did you exit out of parsley? And did

37:26 you immediately decide, man, the things that I had to spin up from a risk and vendor management perspective

37:36 were painful and a lot of homegrown stuff. I know that this is a challenge in the industry. Did you decide like shortly after that, you're gonna build your product and go to market? Like talk me

37:47 through the early 2020s, I guess, at this point Yeah, so when I was at Parsley, I got hired specifically to really build out a third-party risk management program. And what that involves is

38:02 enhancing controls around vendor management at the end of the day. So that includes contracts, insurance verification, and due diligence, or what I would call credentialing. So making sure that

38:16 the people that you're doing business are qualified to do what they say they can do, right? And so I think, you know, as an operator, you're heavily reliant on those third parties. At the end of

38:30 the day, when I walked into parsley, we had, we were blown and going, man. We were, you know, I think we were the fastest oil company to reach 100, 000 BOE. per day. Wow. Yeah, with all

38:43 that activity, that brings a lot of risk, right? And we're spending a lot of money and on our capital program, on our drilling program. And there weren't back office processes to support that,

38:58 that growth. And so I walked into a situation where we were unorganized. We, you know, our contracts, one of the key metrics that I wanted to produce for executive team was, who are we actually

39:12 paying today? And do we have a proper contract in place for them? It

39:17 seems like a business. Right, I mean. But surprisingly, this is an industry problem, you know, I dare to say like, you know, if you're an executive, can you confidently say that you have a

39:30 contract in place, right, with everyone that you're doing business with? And is it the right contract, right? We had situations where we had vendors that got onto our approved vendor list and

39:42 they,

39:44 you know, initially were hired to make hats. And next thing you know, they're hauling water because they see the opportunity.

39:52 It's a totally different risk profile, right? And so how do you manage that as an operator, right? How do you manage that risk associated with ensuring that you have the right contract in place,

40:02 ensuring that they can support that contract by evidencing that they have the proper insurance requirements and make sure that they are qualified to do what they say they can do

40:14 So you so you built this out, right? Did you actually build what became? then link there or was it just the idea was manifesting? Yeah, I think the idea was manifesting. We actually had some

40:26 pretty strategic conversations internally. So I've always been kind of an entrepreneur. Back to my days at Oxi as an accountant. I remember taking walks, we'd take two or three walks a day away

40:40 from just to get off out of our desk. And I'd always have buddies that we'd walk around the campus or whatnot But we'd always dream about technology or doing something different, right? And so when

40:54 I had an opportunity at Parsley, I had an executive team that was backing me to

41:01 create better processes and to utilize technology in a different way to help mitigate this risk, but also to connect stakeholders across the supply chain. And with a little bit of support and a

41:15 little bit backing, we were able to create some really cool. features and some really cool technology to better manage our vendors. And so after that incident, right, we had this horrific

41:29 incident that took place. That ended up bankrupting the vendor. It ended up parsley energies insurance premiums ended up increasing a million dollars a year over a year. We actually couldn't even

41:42 secure a domestic insurance coverage for our control well policy. So we ended up having to market our program. So when you can't buy insurance as an operator, guess what you do? You go to London,

41:57 right? If you can't buy it in the domestic market, you have to go to London. And we ended up counting on, you know, the first thing question that all the underwriters asked us is, you know,

42:06 well, what are you doing to make sure that you don't have that type of loss again, right? But that doesn't happen again. What are you doing with your safety program? What are you doing with your

42:15 contracts?

42:18 And so, we were prepared to have that conversation. We had done some really cool things to better manage contracts, to validate insurance. We put a sizable investment into building out this

42:34 in-house technology to support these back office administrative functions. I would say probably into the tune of like12 million So pretty sizable investment to ensure that you have a good

42:51 understanding of your vendor management program and the health of that program. And what we did is we ended up taking and putting together a presentation of like what we had built from a tech

43:03 perspective. And we shocked that around all the underwriters, right? So we went to London and you're basically doing three days of underwriter meetings where you're convincing people like why they

43:15 should insure you as a company, right? And that actually resulted in a 16 premium discount. So, you know, that would be the first advice I would give any, you know, operator that's experiencing

43:31 a loss that, you know, it was

43:36 a little work to convince the executive team to fly us all out to London, right? It sounds like it's a fun trip, but like, is it really worth it? It's going to be expensive, but it's worth the

43:44 investment Very neat, very neat.

43:49 So that was like the, again, manifestation to use the same word of what Fenlink became. When did you actually start up the startup? Yeah, so, so after, so partially got bought, right, by

44:03 Pioneer and,

44:07 and, you know, I actually didn't know if I was going to be able to land a job in Austin. I was like, you know, what am I going to do next? Right I just had this great job and I'm like, You know,

44:18 most of my experience is oil and gas and, you know, my family has been here for six years. I don't really want to move to Dallas or to Houston, you know, I want to stay here. And so I ended up

44:27 diversifying my background. I went into the construction industry and I worked in the

44:34 technology organization building out risk insurance, safety, quality technology for a big company called DPR Construction So they built all the big skyscrapers downtown Austin, they're two biggest

44:51 clients are Facebook and Google. So they're big into building data centers, like these big mega projects. So I ended up learning a lot more about technology, right, like how to commercialize it,

45:03 how to, I realized that a lot of these same challenges around risk management and third party risk management not only exist in oil and gas, but they exist anywhere that in any organization or

45:18 industry that's highly regulated that uses third parties. Totally. So, you know, two years into that gig, I was a sweet gig, I worked from home, had a great team, but I got a call from my

45:33 previous boss, Mark Brown, who I worked with at Parsley. He was the VP of Risk Management and had a very diverse background in really helping Parsley mitigate vendor fraud.

45:49 And he gave me a call and said, Hey, I'm

45:54 being asked if we can manage vendors, I need help, I've gotten calls from former COO, former CEO, like all the executives kind of wentand did their own thing. And he was getting phone calls to

46:10 help implement these same processes and programs that we implemented at parsley.

46:16 So,

46:20 I was the kind of the brains behind the operation. I'll take credit for that, parsley, of putting all these systems and processes in place to make it more efficient.

46:31 And he gave me a call and said, Hey, I need you to start building out this technology. At the time, we had this list lady that was working out a spreadsheet I think we had two customers at the

46:46 time and she was doing everything the old fashioned way, managing vendor onboarding, vendor management, all in an Excel spreadsheet.

46:58 And Mark quickly realized like, this isn't scalable, right? Just like it wasn't at parsley. If you, when we faced a downturn at parsley, my team got cut in half, but we still have the same

47:04 amount of workload, right? And so what do you do when that happens? You look at technology. And so he did the same thing.

47:14 We don't want to hire more bodies here. We really want to, you know, build what we built at parsley, but commercialize it. So how do you do that? And I've never been a part of anything like that

47:28 in my life, right? And so this seemed like a challenge for me and I was excited. And so I quickly jumped at the opportunity, right? Mark made the first investment in the vent link and, you know,

47:39 I put in sweat equity. That's what I like to call it I worked for free for, you know, a couple of years and did my, you know, put my investment through, through actually delivering our first

47:53 version of our product, which I configured on Salesforce, built the data model on Salesforce. And that's the first version that our customers used at vent link. And we really were able to refine

48:06 the product into now what it is today amazing. That's it. And so. VenLink now is, it's really a thing. You've got a mature platform that you have operators and vendors

48:23 on boarding and tracking and keeping all of their documents in and on. Is there like a certain size company that is your sweet spot? Or is it really like the entire oil and gas industry can use this?

48:39 So, you know, there's some things that make VenLink unique And so, one of those things, I'm gonna break it down kind of like

48:48 three personas, right? So, you have the executive level, right? So, executives love VenLink because it gives them a 360 view of the health of their vendor management program. Sure. And when I

49:00 say vendor management health, VenLink's broken into like really three pillars, right? So, when you go into an organization and you wanna help them mitigate third party risk, the first thing you

49:11 look at is what talked about earlier, which is contracts. Does the vendor have a proper contract in place? The only way you can know that is first, you gotta categorize those vendors. You gotta

49:21 know what products and services they offer. You gotta know where they offer those products and services. And then you gotta make sure that you're using the latest and greatest contract. The second

49:32 pillar is insurance verification. And that's ensuring that that vendor can support that contract and their indemnity obligations And then the third, like I said, is credentialing, right? And

49:44 making sure that they're qualified to do what they say they can do. And so,

49:51 you know, that is the backbone of what I call our vendor maturity index. So the way that we rank our customers, we have like an internal metric that says like, Hey, how well is this customer

50:07 managing their vendors?

50:11 You know, executives love our platform, like I said, 'cause it

50:13 surfaces any issues related to contracts, insurance, in a dashboard, right? So now they have a 360 view. Operations loves VenLink because they have a digital AVL, so a digital approved vendor

50:28 list. Historically, I don't know how Oxy or some of these bigger, it's been a minute since I've worked at any of these larger organizations, but I can tell you that MIP size to small, medium

50:42 operators are most likely distributing their AVL via spreadsheet. Yeah. So they'll send it out weekly. I call it the truck AVL, right? Sits in the truck might not be updated. Is this vendor

50:54 really qualified? Are they compliant or not, right? So what we offer is we offer, the palm of your hand, you have the ability to search a vendor by product, service, location, right? And this

51:07 allows operations to make informed procurement decisions.

51:12 At the end of the day, most medium-sized operators don't have a supply chain department. The

51:20 supply chain is being managed by operations, and we're providing insights

51:27 that allow operators or superintendents filled operations to make these informed procurement decisions

51:35 Yeah, I mean, it sounds super logical, and I love when startups, especially oil and gas, tech, form out of what you experienced on the other side of the table, because you naturally have

51:46 empathy for what they're going through. You understand the pain, and you've aligned a solution to solve for that pain. It's not like we think this is a good idea. It's like we know this is a good

51:55 idea. It doesn't matter if you want to keep doing it in spreadsheets or actually make your life a little bit easier. Right So at the end of the day, I sat in this seat, right? So I've onboarded

52:04 like over 10, 000 vendors in my career and it's a It is not a rewarding task. Let's put it that way, right? Like it's very administrative heavy, you know, and so you go to that third persona,

52:17 which is the doer, right? Like I was the doer, I had to do all the work, right? When my team got cut, I still had to do all the work, right? And so, you know, the whole idea and the whole

52:30 premise behind Vennlink is to automate that vendor onboarding and oversight program And so, what we're building is something that I wanted at, you know, parsley ended up getting, we hadn't

52:42 finished the product. We still had a development roadmap there. And so, I'm excited now 'cause I'm actually finishing what I always dreamt about building. And I see a lot of value for operators

52:55 and specifically the doer, because, you know, I can say confidently that

53:03 it's a pain in the ass to go out and collect a W9 to collect insurance. to control all that documentation and then staying on top of it. I mean, you have to make 30, 40, sometimes you just don't

53:18 get that level of cooperation with all of these vendors. And at Parsley, we even used Veriforce ISNet World where

53:29 these vendors would have to subscribe. They'd have to actually pay for something before they were even awarded work, right? So like now you're requiring them to, you're forcing them to go buy the

53:39 subscription to collect this data and we'd always get pushback. Like, man, why won't we go, why won't we do that? Yeah, I don't want to do that. That's - Nobody else has asked me to do that.

53:49 Right,

53:51 and so also I haven't got any paid yet. Like, why am I going to pay and subscribe to this when you guys haven't even awarded me any work, right? And so I've looked at all the bottlenecks and all

54:02 the challenges around this whole life cycle vendor onboarding and offboarding. and compliance management. And we've really feel like, we've created kind of this structure to be able to automate a

54:16 lot of these routine tasks, right? So there's a lot of cool things around what's happening with AI.

54:27 And, you know, we're utilizing AI to, you know, make our team more efficient at the end of the day, right? There's, you don't need to have someone in the back office that's, you know, making

54:40 these phone calls. And you can automate a lot of things, you leveraging the technology that exists today. And so, you know, this is a tool that I wish I would have had at Parsley Energy, because,

54:52 you know, we have, we are able to cut 60, 70 of the time it takes

55:02 to do all those administrative tasks, to collect those documents, you know,

55:09 I was a high-paying professional. Like I spent a lot of my time doing administrative work when I could have been spending my time elsewhere, right? And so that's really the value proposition for

55:18 the end user, for the doer at the end of the day. It's, you know, we serve as their backup. We allow them to allocate their time to areas that create more value. Love it, love it. We're coming

55:32 up on time. I'm probably gonna have to have you come back again 'cause there's other things I wanna ask you, but where can people find out more about your company? You have websites and social

55:44 media pages and conferences that you go to. Where can people find out more about VenLink? Yeah, I mean, you can check out our website, VenLinkcom, right? We love more followers on LinkedIn.

55:55 We're always looking for followers, right? So

56:03 you can follow us on LinkedIn and if you're.

56:08 you know, even more curious about what we offer, you can reach out directly to me.

56:15 Not hard to find. Well, Josh, it's been a pleasure certainly learning more about you, your background, your history, and then of course weaving into the company that you're starting a building.

56:26 So really excited to see VenLink evolve. Sounds like a well thought out solution. You've got a team that's lived it before. So certainly wish you the best of luck And yeah, we'll have you on again

56:38 a little bit down the road to talk about how things have progressed in your company. But thank you for coming on. What the fuck?