Donald A. Olson
Donald
Olson is currently President of his own engineering consulting company,
Cambridge Consulting. In 1997, Don was a very early founding partner of Energy
Partners, Ltd., where he worked on the grass roots team which kicked off this
New York Stock Exchange Company. Energy Partners, Ltd. was founded in
New Orleans
by what would amount to ten professionals in the energy business. He was
responsible for the first major business deal to put that company on the map,
and later was key in expanding that profit center to its current importance.
That profit center would be the financial launching pad for EPL's next major
expansion where he also worked on the team that would quadruple the size of the
company in one large transaction. That put EPL on a springboard to attract
Merrill-Lynch as primary underwriter for its initial public offering in 2000.
Don's major assignments while at EPL were Vice President of the Bay Marchand Profit Center, and Vice President of Environmental, Health and Safety. While at EPL, Don was the only Company Incident Commander and held a post on the Investment Advisory Committee, responsible for all budget expenditures. He regularly reported on the company's success to the primary investors in the company.
Even though Don got his engineering start as a Rocket Scientist, working for NASA, testing rocket engines for the Apollo spacecraft, he was attracted early on to the oil industry by Shell oil Company. The majority of Don's experience in the energy industry came through his two prior employers: With Shell, he received his initial training by working on several of the largest oil and gas fields in the Gulf of Mexico. And at Louisiana Land and Exploration Co. (LL&E), he began to understand the workings of a smaller company and, while working at the corporate staff level, (both in Engineering and in Finance), gained experience managing and planning, budgeting and forecasting from the division level on up. Regular projects included capital budget allocation, property ranking, asset acquisitions and divestitures (domestic, onshore and offshore, and international), and preparation of presentations for the Board of Directors, rating agencies, investment bankers and lending institutions. Always entrepreneurial minded, Don initiated several projects new to LL&E. He initiated the policy of assigning up-and-coming engineers to the Finance Department on the Planning Team; he led the effort to market storage space in LL&E's twelve salt domes to foreign mid-east royalty; he initiated and led the LL&E Engineering Computer Systems Committee; and he headed the effort to team with two other companies in a bid to manage the US Government's Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
Don has two engineering degrees in Mechanical Engineering from LSU (BS) in Baton Rouge and MIT (MS) in Cambridge, MA, and is a Registered Professional Engineer in Louisiana in both the fields of Petroleum and Mechanical Engineering.
Activities based on interests outside of his career are husband, and father of great daughter who just graduated from Emory University, a term in the US Army Reserve starting in 1966, commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in the Ordnance Corps upon graduation in 1969, and honorably discharged in 1981 at the rank of Captain, now a member of the American Legion. For ten years, Don was a member of the Industry Advisory Board to Nicholls State University in Thibodeaux, Louisiana.
Don's other interests include computers, networking and its applications (having installed many networks using Windows 98, Me, and XP), photography (just starting over in digital), woodworking, cycling, inline skating, and personal investing.
All Work and No Pay Makes Jack a Dull Boy – What to Expect When
You Start Your Own Business
Most entrepreneurs focus entirely on a technology, patent, skill or process that
would be valued by prospective customers. While looking for startup money, most
ignore the amount of startup effort that will be devoted to administrative and
clerical duties when on a tight budget. This talk will emphasize that other
side of founding a business...working long hours, supplying your own office
supplies, even emptying the trash. There will be a much reduced level of
income, maybe none; long days; and a high intensity single-mindedness which
others will describe as "boring." Family relations will suffer, finances will
strain, business plans will stretch out. Will or will it not succeed? Should I
give up? When do I call it quits? This story ends with success, a smooth
startup, followed by logical growth, several infusions of capital and a public
stock offering on the New York Stock Exchange. And then the real work started!