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Michael Wiley
D i s t i n g u i s h e d A l u m n u s
M
ichael Wiley learned the oil and gas business
from the ground up – literally.
As a University of Tulsa petroleum engineering
major from Jenks, Okla., he spent summers working
for the Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO) as a roustabout:
cleaning tanks, overhauling engines and digging
ditches in the oilfields of West Texas.
“It sure gave me an appreciation of what they do
and why I didn’t want to do that for the rest of my
life,” says Wiley. “It helped motivate me to study hard.”
Wiley has a scholarship program established by
two longtime TU faculty members – Kermit Brown
and James Brill – to thank for his eye-opening summer
experiences. In keeping with their collaborative vision
uniting academia and industry, Professors Brown and
Brill recruited oil companies to sponsor TU petroleum
engineering undergraduates, providing both scholarship
support and summer jobs. Wiley’s benefactor was
ARCO, and the relationship between the company and
its young protégé endured for the next 30 years.
“ARCO consistently provided their young engineers
with many opportunities,” Wiley said. “For me,
this included assignments in the Gulf of Mexico, Iran,
Indonesia, the North Sea, Greenland and Alaska, all in
my first 10 years with the company. It was an invaluable
experience.”
As an undergraduate, Wiley took classes on TU’s
North Campus, located two miles north of the main
campus on Lewis Ave. TU’s petroleum engineering
research consortia remain headquartered on the North
Campus today.
“We were a little isolated, but it drove us together,”
says Wiley of the camaraderie that developed among
petroleum engineering majors. As an undergradate,
he was also active in the TU student chapter of the
Society of Petroleum Engineers, an international professional
organization that continues to provide students
with career development opportunities through
field trips, guest speakers and conferences.
Wiley graduated from TU in 1972 with a bachelor’s
degree in petroleum engineering and promptly
moved to Lafayette, La., to work for ARCO as a
junior engineer. During the first two decades of his
career, Wiley held a variety of ARCO engineering and
operations positions in the United States and abroad:
petroleum engineer, senior drilling engineer, staff
operations manager, production manager, and manager
of planning and evaluation. He also earned a master’s
degree in business administration from the University
of Dallas.
Wiley was named vice president of ARCO in
1989 and advanced into executive positions of increasing
responsibility until he became president and chief
operating officer. During the 1990s, Wiley spearheaded
a period of tremendous growth for ARCO, including a
landmark joint venture with the Russian oil company,
LUKOIL, one of the first business associations of its kind
in the industry. He also oversaw the spin-off of Vastar
Resources, an ARCO subsidiary, into an independent oil
and gas company, serving as Vastar’s first president and
chief executive officer and later as chairman.
After three decades with ARCO, Wiley took the helm
of Baker Hughes, a Houston-based oil services company,
when British Petroleum merged with ARCO in 2000.
During his four years as chairman, president and CEO of
Baker Hughes, Wiley brought the company back to life
following a period of decline. He semi-retired in 2004
but remains involved serving on several public and private
company boards.
In a distinguished career stewarding oil and gas assets
from West Texas to the Caspian Sea, Wiley has always
attributed his success to TU’s program in petroleum engineering.
“Under the leadership of E.T. Guerrero (longtime
dean of TU’s engineering college), and professors like
Kermit Brown and Jim Brill, it was one of the most recognized
programs of its kind in the nation,” he says.
Wiley has also remained committed to strengthening
the partnership between academia and industry, serving
on TU’s Petroleum Engineering Advisory Board for
10 years and as a member of the TU Board of Trustees
from 1999-2005. He was inducted into the College of
Engineering and Natural Sciences Hall of Fame in 1998.
On the personal front, Wiley and his wife, Laura,
have two children, Sara, a graduate of Syracuse University
and TU, where she earned a master’s degree in computer
science; and Richard, who is an undergraduate
at the University of Kansas. The Wileys are members
of TU’s Circle Society and support the Annual Fund
for the College of Engineering and Natural Sciences as
Challengers. Wiley was also instrumental in establishing
TU’s Baker Hughes Presidential Scholarship in
Mechanical Engineering.
While Wiley’s early oilfield lessons as a TU undergraduate
proved invaluable, he cites another experience
as uniquely instructive. During college, he worked part
time for Montgomery Ward repairing washers, dryers,
air conditioners and lawn mowers. When the company
announced cutbacks, Wiley, who had just been named his
store’s number one serviceman, was on the hit list.
“I got the award on a Saturday and they laid me off on
Monday,” he says. “That’s life.”
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