Elliott Offers Insight to Students Entering Petroleum Industry

9/11/2017 

Before they enter the workforce, Gregory D. Elliott, president and founder of Workstrings International LLC, had some words of advice for the LSU chapter of the American Association for Drilling Engineers (AADE).

Elliott, a 1981 LSU Petroleum Engineering alumnus and member of AADE, explained that petroleum graduates should be mentally prepared for what is a cyclical industry.

“You go through some really good times when there are not enough people for the industry and you go through times when there are too many people for the industry,” Elliott said. “At the end of the day, it will all work out.”

He also discussed working as an intern with an oil or service company during the summer or long holiday breaks as a great way to network and gain work experience.

Elliott, a 2017 LSU College of Engineering Hall of Distinction inductee, spent 15 years at Chevron before deciding to start his own company, Workstrings International. Since its beginning in 1997, it has become the first company to create and develop, on a large scale, a certain market sector in the oil industry that never existed. Today, Workstrings International is made up of 400 employees working at 39 offices on six of the seven continents.

“I am a prime example that if someone from where I grew up [Central Louisiana] can succeed through hard work, studying, and positive support, then anybody can do it,” said Elliott.

AADE is a petroleum student organization that specifically focuses on all things applied to drilling.

Matthew Waguespack, president of AADE, said the organization meets a few times each month with different companies that provide insight into the industry.

“We are the future of engineering,” Waguespack said. “Greg was happy to come out and speak with us.”

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Article by Raven Nichols, College of Engineering communications intern. For more information contact Josh Duplechain, director of communications at josh@lsu.edu.