On the hunt for oil

Geologist Greg Gordon is NSME's Rising `Runner

By California State University, Bakersfield

February 11^th, 2020

Editor's note: Greg Gordon is one of four 2020 Alumni Rising Runners, CSUB graduates of the last 10 years already making a mark with their careers.

Imagine hunting for treasure that just about everybody needs but is getting harder to find. That’s what Greg Gordon does for a living.

He is an exploration geologist and team lead at Aera Energy in Bakersfield, one of California’s largest oil and gas producers. He and his team use geological science and engineering to discover oil and gas fields that can be tapped for hydrocarbons petroleum and natural gas.

“It’s actually quite challenging in California on-shore because we have some really interesting and complex geology, with all this region’s faults and mountain ranges and what-not,” Gordon, 42, said.

It’s also tough, he said, because California has a nearly 150-year history of really smart people exploring for the finite resource and they’ve already discovered a lot of it. And the state’s regulatory climate is becoming more and more difficult to navigate each year.

Genetics, a love of maps and the thrill of the chase all played into Gordon’s choice of career. The son of a successful exploration geologist father, Gordon moved back and forth between Bakersfield and Texas growing up and earned his bachelor’s degree in geosciences from the University of Texas at Dallas in 2000.

Gordon’s first job in the local oil industry, starting in 2003, was at Occidental at Elk Hills, where as a petrophysicist and operations geologist he monitored and logged well activity at what is one of California’s largest oil fields. Seeking additional adventure, he then spent two years at a start-up oil company that eventually shuttered.

Gordon, who returned to Oxy, wanted to specialize in exploration geology and perhaps get into research and so earned his master’s degree in geology from CSUB in 2009.

He worked full-time during the day and took classes two nights a week. Those were busy quarters, Gordon said, but it was good for him.

“Full disclosure, it’s tough and it’s busy and you’re going, going, going. And sometimes you’re like, ‘When do I eat dinner? Or can I just grab coffee?” Gordon said. “But those are the moments when you have the most professional and technical and, sometimes, personal growth.”

He said he particularly enjoyed studying at CSUB because there was a friendliness and appreciation for the oil industry – and all of its data -- not found everywhere else.

When the Great Recession hit, Gordon thought it would be good to get his Ph.D. and position himself to teach or do research. He and his family moved to Golden, Colo., so he could attend the prestigious Colorado School of Mines, from which he earned his doctorate in 2014.

Gordon did a lot of field work for his doctorate in Spain and Ventura County, where the geology around Lake Piru is not unlike some of the rocks and reservoirs underneath the southern San Joaquin Valley, Gordon said.

Gordon expected to end up at a university or big research lab in Houston or San Ramon after getting his Ph.D. But home called instead. A position opened up in Aera’s exploration group and since he really liked the people there, and his family was in Bakersfield, Gordon took the job.

“So we came back and I’m here, six and a half, almost seven, years later,” he said.

“We” is Gordon’s wife, Jessamyn, and their four kids, age almost 5 to 13.

Gordon has been active in the San Joaquin Geological Society and Keep Bakersfield Beautiful in past years and as a coach for his kids’ basketball and soccer teams. He just started teaching an advanced sedimentary geology class at CSUB, and is incorporating examples from his field work into his lessons.