A. Earl Swift
Founder of Swift Energy Company
A Tribute to A. Earl Swift
To know Earl Swift was to respect him. Though he had an unassuming manner, his intellect and wit were apparent to everyone who knew him. His compassion and generosity were also obvious, making him a man not easily forgotten.
Here at Swift Energy, we can recall even more to admire about Earl Swift. We remember him as a strong leader who was consistently fair yet demanded the best we had to give. Always proud of the collective talents he had assembled, he encouraged us to use those talents not only for the good of the company and its shareholders, but also for each other, our families, and the communities in which the company operates. He considered the way we interacted with one another and others outside the company to be of high importance. He repeatedly reminded us that he had founded the company on family values he had been taught, and he expected those values to be adhered to, no matter how big a player we became in the oil and gas industry.
Earl learned those family values early, not only in the home but also while working for the small drilling company owned and operated by his uncles and father Virgil Swift. The Swift brothers put their sons to work in the Oklahoma oil fields as teenagers; thus Earl and his own brothers Virgil Neil and Kenneth Merle (his twin who predeceased him) gained practical field experience and the desire to learn more about the industry.
In 1951, Earl enrolled at the University of Oklahoma, graduating in 1955 with a petroleum engineering degree and an expertise in waiting tables to earn tuition. After a short stint in the U.S. Army, he began his career as a reservoir engineer at Humble Oil Company (a predecessor of ExxonMobil). Seven years later he joined the Michigan-Wisconsin Pipeline Company, whose primary business was natural gas pipeline transmission. With natural gas completely regulated by the federal government at the time, he had frequent interactions with the Federal Power Commission, pushing him into acquiring legal skills. He enrolled in night school classes at South Texas College of Law in Houston and received a law degree in 1968. In 1979, he left Michigan-Wisconsin, where he had become vice president of exploration and production.
His departure was prompted by his unquenchable desire to begin his own oil and gas company. It was a leap of faith. “When an entrepreneur starts a business from scratch with little financial resources,” he later wrote, “he finds himself wearing all the hats. I was the engineer, the lawyer, the real estate negotiator, and the geologist.” He succeeded despite his multiple responsibilities, and on October 11, 1979, he founded Swift Energy Company.
So that he would not compete with his former employer, Earl chose to begin the company’s operations with a conservative drilling program in West Virginia, where, under new regulations, gas from certain reservoirs in the Devonian shale could be sold at negotiated prices. With funds provided by a private drilling fund partnership of friends and colleagues, he launched a drilling program of 10 successful wells that affirmed his reservoir engineering skills and assured a future for Swift Energy Company.
After more than a year of drilling successes in West Virginia, Earl convinced his brother Virgil and his son Terry Earl to join Swift Energy in 1981. To do so, Virgil retired from Gulf Oil Corporation after 28 years in various managerial positions in drilling and production and Terry left his position as a reservoir engineer with H.J. Gruy and Associates, Inc. Virgil became chief operating officer and vice chairman of the board, and Earl retained his positions as president, chief executive officer, and chairman of the board. Working as a management team, the three Swifts successfully expanded the company’s drilling program to several other states.
Soon, however, dramatic changes began to occur in the oil and gas industry because of an oversupply of natural gas and plunging oil and gas prices. Earl was the first to recognize that the survival of the company depended on a strategic shift in direction, and in 1983 he refocused the company’s activities from drilling activities to the acquisition and operation of oil and gas properties that were already producing. To fund the acquisitions, Swift Energy created and managed public income fund partnerships in which the company itself held interests. In its dual role as both operator and investor, the company enhanced production by improving the properties, sometimes with development drilling.
This strategy served the company well through the next decade, but Earl’s plan was to return to the search for oil and gas whenever the industry outlook improved. In anticipation of this, he encouraged the company to build technical teams whose skills could immediately be put to use in selecting and developing partnership properties and in identifying future exploration prospects. He was also keenly aware of the implications of the information age and urged the company to adapt to advanced technologies.
At the same time, Earl felt that he and others in management could better lead Swift Energy in the future with more formal education in business, and he was the first from the company to enroll in the Presidential/Key Executive MBA Program at Pepperdine University. In fulfilling the requirements for graduation in 1988, he produced a seven-year strategic plan for the company that specified oil and gas reserves growth targets for 1995. By the time 1995 arrived, we had exceeded the plan’s goals. We also had ceased offering partnership interests and had begun relying on other capital formation strategies.
Under Earl’s continuing leadership, several steps by the company had made such progress possible. Deciding to focus on larger properties within limited geographic regions, in 1989 we gained majority interests in a number of wells in the AWP Olmos Field in McMullen County, Texas, and began a highly successful drilling program that continues today with over 500 wells operating. At the same time we acquired properties in the Weatherford Field in Oklahoma, operating them for our partnerships for several years. In 1992, we joined others in the industry in drilling horizontal wells in the Austin Chalk trend in the Texas Giddings Field, drilling 87 horizontal wells with an 84% success rate before completing the program in 2000.
Later, in 1998, still under Earl’s watch, we transferred our Austin Chalk expertise to properties we acquired in central Louisiana and an adjoining Texas area (Toledo Bend), and in 1999 we had our first international discovery in New Zealand.
While all these activities were occurring, Earl and Virgil were following well-laid plans for the company’s management succession. In 1991, Terry began assuming executive positions, as did others in the company. Virgil retired as an employee in 2000 and from the Board of Directors in 2005. Earl retired as president in 2000 and as chief executive officer in 2001, remaining as chairman of the board but planning to also leave that position in 2007.
Under our new management, we made the most significant acquisition of our history with the purchase in 2001 of our initial interests in the Lake Washington Field in South Louisiana, a move applauded by Earl. He also enthusiastically approved the assistance given by the company to its employees and communities devastated by the effects of hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. It was, he felt, in keeping with his vision of the company as stated in his 25th anniversary letter to the employees: “I see Swift Energy as a company of role models, an organization filled with people who consistently work to change things for the better. I want each of you to know that I am proud to be your chairman and have every confidence that you will continue to do great things in the future.”
We shall try, Mr. Chairman. We shall try our utmost.
A. Earl Swift was a student of human nature. He wrote on the subject of human nature, and the quotation given below his picture is from one of his published papers, some of which are listed below:
"The Dynamics of Organizational Relationships," World Energy Magazine, v.5, n.1 (2002)
"The Evolution of Organizational Relationships: Multicultural Ethics and the New World Order," World Energy Magazine, v.5, n.2 (2002)
"The Interdependence of Organizational Relationships: Leadership in the New World Order," World Energy Magazine, v.5, n.3 (2002)
"The Integration of Organizational Relationships: The Role of Authority in the Global Economic Order," World Energy Magazine, v.6, n.3 (2003)
A. Earl Swift also shared many of his thoughts in letters to Swift Energy employees, particularly on special anniversaries of the company. The articles listed below were addressed to the employees on the company’s twentieth and twenty-fifth anniversaries and provide many insights on how he chose to direct the company and how very proud he was of what it has become.
"Chairman A. Earl Swift Reflects on the Company's Roots," on Swift Energy Company's 20th Anniversary, October 11, 1999
"Proud Past, Bright Future," on Swift Energy Company's 25th Anniversary, October 11, 2004
"Swift Energy Company's First 25 Years: A Triumph of Team Effort," on Swift Energy Company's 25th Anniversary, October 11, 2004
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