| Roy graduated from Evander Childs high school
in 1962. In college, he majored in history until he learned
that someone might pay him to do his hobby, geology. As an
undergraduate, he worked on the university fossil collection
and also in a rock and mineral shop where he was paid in rocks
and minerals. He took every course in geology offered by City
University, which included a subway commute to Brooklyn College
to learn sedimentology and weekend research at Columbia University's
Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory. After a variety of
geology jobs in and around New York City, he went to work
for Texaco as an exploration geologist in West Texas and New
Mexico. Roy loved it so much, he claims that he would have
worked free for Texaco just to be able to get his hands on
subsurface well log data and drill wells.
While in Texas Roy took courses at night and on weekends
and later completed his master's degree in geology in 1971
from Michigan State University, then received his doctorate
in geology in 1975 from Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI).
To support his family and pay expenses Roy consulted on Michigan
reefs which was part of his thesis and taught at junior colleges
in both Michigan and New York. He later taught basic laboratory
techniques for sedimentologists and advanced laboratory techniques
for all geologists at RPI. However, the students did not work
hard enough to make this a rewarding activity so he went into
industry for the money and challenges of 'real' reality (not
virtual) drilling to test his ideas.
In March 1975, Dr. Roy was the first geologist hired by the
Schlumberger-Doll Research Center in Connecticut to do geological
research. His research efforts included a variety of developments
that contributed to the creation of ways to take electrical
pictures of the wall of a well. He also field tested many
of the Schlumberger basic logging tools and served as adviser
on their first geological workstation, the dipmeter advisor.
After 10 years in research, Roy left to lead a geological
team in the Tokyo engineering center as they were defining
the specifications for the first multidisciplinary reservoir
characterization workstation. After that he choose to join
the French foreign legion (sometimes called Schlumberger Operations)
and went to the Middle East desert region to help introduce
some of the new technology and techniques that his teams in
research and engineering had helped to develop. While overseas,
Roy gained new insight into the complexities of the large
and giant oil reservoirs of the Middle East.
After 11 years as Chief Geologist for Schlumberger in the
Middle East, Roy returned to the USA in 1996 as Interpretation
Advisor for Geology. In addition to his ancillary professional
activities -- editing journals, lecturing, organizing conferences,
consulting on research, and serving as the 1997 Vice President
of the AAPG -- he has authored more than 100 abstracts, papers
and book chapters. Now, he hopes to concentrate on quality
instead of quantity.
Soon after retirement in 1998 Roy and Roberta moved to Fallbrook, California to care for their Rancho Paradisio Organic Farm, where they work harder than ever before, but feel blessed as His yoke is easy and His burden is light. |
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