The last few years has seen major disruption of the U.S. oil and gas industry – leaving thousands out of work and without paychecks. There is no end in sight.
To underscore this point, the CEO of Baker Hughes told colleagues gathered at the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition Conference (ADIPEC), "The new normal is continuous disruption, we need to take out all the inefficiency and instead our industry needs transparency and visibility," according to a report from CNBC.
To help people find their footing in the midst of this ongoing disruption a multi-discipline drilling team and academic software team have come together and created Rig Lynx, a new platform for oil and gas personnel. Rig Lynx offers users professional networking opportunities through chat, messaging, and online services. The community ensures relevance by using a special algorithm developed just for this application to assemble posts and shares for each individual member.
While other apps and websites offer professional networking and job search services, Rig Lynx differentiates itself with its exclusive focus on the oil and gas sector. The app is available for free on iOS and Android devices.
Once the contract is over all you have left is your reputation
Greg Williams has spent more than half of his life in the drilling industry building successful teams and managing operations in over 13 countries. He has worked at multiple levels within the world's largest as well as the smallest drilling contractor organizations.
Take life as it comes
Zubair Khan embraced the oil and gas industry at the early age of 23 upon exiting Engineering College in Bangalore, India. Post graduating as a Chemical Engineer he was looking to start his career and received a call to attend an interview for the Graduate Trainee Engineer...
Ankit Thacker
Chief Technical Officer
God is in human beings, keep adding positive Karma to the world and you will be happy forever
Ankit Thacker has spent the last seven years working one on one with multi-national companies to help them build great brand names and enhancing that first impression made across websites and mobile device applications With a solid development team behind him...
Pritesh Akhani
Keep working hard and don't focus on results
Pritesh Akhani has spent the last 12 years enveloped in software design and application development with a multitude of successful projects behind him, leads a team of programmers that he handpicks to deliver results and stay on delivery target for his clients.
Tom Shrader
Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way - George S. Patton
Tom Shrader has been dealing with Watermakers and other fluid handling packages for the Offshore Oil Industry for the majority of his life. He has held multiple positions in several organizations. From his days fitting pipe to now being in sales he has a well-rounded training that allows...
Greg Williams has spent more than half of his life in the drilling industry building successful teams and managing operations in over 13 countries. He has worked at multiple levels within the world's largest as well as the smallest drilling contractor organizations. With a multi-talented skillset onshore and offshore ranging from operations, new technology, rebuild, repair and new build vessel delivery and startup.
For the last 6 years he has managed Vantage Drilling's 6th generation ultra deepwater drillship the Tungsten Explorer. This vessel won the "2016 Rig of the Year" award from the French exploration giant Total for exemplary safety, outstanding drilling performance and lowest non-productive time in Total's deepwater business segment.
Spending 7 years prior aboard Transocean's 5th generation semi-submersible the Deepwater Horizon, this helped spur his first published writing "Our Horizon – In The Moment" after the 2010 tragedy that took the lives of 8 of his friends and coworkers. It details real life aboard the vessel with the team and goes into more of the human spirit that drove the "Deepwater Horizon" to the top performing rig in Transocean's fleet and one of British Petroleum's most successful operation for many years.
Focused entirely on building long lasting relationships with clients, co-workers and stake holders within his operations team has exposed him to a unique community experience where he has since moved from just a "Drilling SME" to more of a "Drilling Community SME" with emphasis on morale, teambuilding, passionate about the success of others and a deeper understanding of what makes a team successful.
"I was working as Senior Toolpusher on a drillship back in 2011, we took the vessel to Liberia, West Africa, had a few startup problems and some bumps along the way. I was standing in the drilling cabin speaking with the Driller one day when an angry company representative come through the door, removed his safety glasses, tilted his hard hat back and said "I need to speak to you", I said "No problem, let's step back here" I opened up the door leading into the electrical equipment room".
"The door no sooner closed and he said "I don't like how you are pulling out of the hole", at the time they had drilled the tophole very fast and it was hard to pull out of because the hole was not gauge, so we were encountering a lot of drag and torque.
"He began to get loud, I asked him "Are you prepared to pay a million dollars to repair a piece of equipment that you want to operate outside of its design criteria?" he said "I don't care about your equipment" I said "I don't care about your hole" we stood there staring at each other like the shootout at the O.K. Corral, after much deliberation I said "My reputation is more important than this contract".
During his career he studied photography, journalism and was able to develop some additional skillsets relating to social media. He coupled his operational background to his newly learned skills and in December 2017 he founded and launched Rig Lynx LLC with his friend Zubair Khan based in Mumbai,India.
Rig Lynx is the largest oil and gas community on iOS and Android mobile devices and offers users professional networking opportunities through chat, messaging, and online services. While other apps and websites offer professional networking and job search services, Rig Lynx differentiates itself with its exclusive focus on the oil and gas sector. The app is available for free on iOS and Android mobile devices.
When Greg is not working in the drilling community he enjoys spending time with his amazing family and friends back in Houston, traveling around the world and taking the drone out of the box as much as he can for casual photography and catching those moments that he has never seen before.
Ankit Thacker has spent the last seven years working one on one with multi-national companies to help them build great brand names and enhancing that first impression made across websites and mobile device applications. With a solid development team behind him he has successfully supported the launch of many new iOS and Android applications. From day to day he focuses on networking with key clients and makes sure that the best available technology is applied to each aspect of the design, execution and delivery of the final product.
"To build a software company was always a dream for me. In 2012 I was working with U.S lawyers on mass tort cases and it was here where I built many relationships with clients that were looking to outsource their software services"
This dream and the addition of friendships he made during his tenure at Heriot Watt University propelled his idea of starting his own software outsourcing service. He was approached with the idea for a mobile device application that would allow him to start this dream in 2016.
Ankit holds an MBA in finance, MSc in international accounting and finance and a Bachelors in Computer Applications , much of his background has been spent with the Royal Bank of Scotland in the charge, direct banking and fraud departments working with customers and sharpening his delivery and personal skills face to face in time sensitive situations.
In August of 2017 his team connected with Greg Williams and Zubair Khan through the application Freelancer where they were looking for some help to develop an application, this one moment in time has flourished into a long term commitment and relationship with the development and delivery of Rig Lynx
Ankit is currently the CEO of KBA Systems back in his home country of India where he works with his team developing iOS and Android applications for a multitude of different clients. In his free time he loves to visit the gym and use Instagram. He follows people that can share knowledge with the rest of the world about their journeys to success.
Zubair Khan embraced the oil and gas industry at the early age of 23 upon exiting Engineering College in Bangalore, India. Post graduating as a Chemical Engineer he was looking to start his career and received a call to attend an interview for the Graduate Trainee Engineer program for a land based drilling contractor. After much deliberation he decided to attend the interview and was selected as a candidate for the program. He spent the next two years working his way up from a Graduate Trainee to an Assistant Driller.
"My first day on the drilling location as a trainee along with my other graduate trainees we were introduced to the Toolpusher and Driller. During the introduction the Driller began to "frown" as this is typical when new engineers, that are being trained, as a field employees expect to have someone they can work with immediately and not to be training or mentoring, although it is a very important process that we should be embrace and it has gotten substantially better over the years but he told us to go and meet the chap (Roustabout) who was working on the pipe rack cleaning the casing threads with "Diesel".
"We met this Chap and introduced ourselves as Trainees to him and said "We are here to learn" he said to all of us "Get diesel along with some cotton rags and start cleaning the threads" we stood there bewildered as you can imagine, the next thing that came to our minds was "What are we doing with this dirt after completing our engineering", so that very moment I decided to leave my "Engineering Degree" at the entrance of the drilling site and learn the oilfield, it was that day I will never forget which has made me what I am today and that Chap (My True Mentor) although I have had some priceless mentors in my entire career, is currently working on my rig as "Floorhand"."
Having the opportunity to start his trainee employment with Dalma Energy enabled him to align his new found passion for the industry with Transocean as they accepted him into their Rig Engineering Program in the spring of 2006.
He worked relentlessly in the pursuit of knowledge to gain a steady foothold in a competitive market at the time. During the years that Zubair was actively training in the industry there were multiple drilling contractors announcing new build vessels and many projects actively being assigned to schedules around the world.
With Transocean he filled the role of Rig Engineer where he supported rigs in Qatar and in Mumbai with upgrades, repairs and daily operational activities. He then went on to chair the position of Conference Manager for the IADC South Central Asia Drilling Technology Conference in the summer of 2010.
Later that following year he joined Vantage Drilling where he supported the 6th generation ultra deepwater drillship the Platinum Explorer operating in Mumbai. He filled the role of Operations Engineer and sat this role in multiple countries including United States, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea before moving over to the Congo to assume an Assistant Rig Manager position for the 6th generation ultra deepwater drillship the Tungsten Explorer working for Total E & P.
During this time in the Congo is where he met Greg Williams, Rig Manager of the Tungsten Explorer, they both worked together on the rig's Key Performance Indicators, enhancing and optimizing them for the company and the client. Here is where they built a friendship and when Greg called him in the spring of 2017 about Rig Lynx he was immediately onboard.
Zubair is currently a Rig Manager back in his home country of India, stationed in Mumbai over the Platinum Explorer. When he is not working he enjoys spending time with his family whether it is working on a new project with his 8 year old son or checking out a new restaurant with his wife over the weekends, he still manages to squeeze a game of Cricket in from time to time.
In his previous roles with software development, he was the key person that visited clients to understand their business needs and interacted with them on a daily basis as well as leading the day to day business of project management, module development, unit testing and support with 3rd part interaction. Coming from a strong back ground as a Technical Leader, Senior Program Analyst and Software Engineer enabled him to grasp the big picture and not focus on the results but more on the process of getting the results.
A story he shares with others about what led him into the business, was with his friend Ankit back in 2001. "In 2001 I started on my Bachelors with Ankit, we would have positive competitions during our studies on who could complete the exams first and have the highest score. We always tried to make sure that we could complete our practical exams in a minimum of 20 minutes. We would shout in front of the professor as soon as we would finish saying "Sir, done sir" and then we would look around to see if the other was still working, the entire class was envious of our ability for the programing language "
Pritesh spent 10 years with Gateway Technolabs and in 2009 he decided to start his own business with Ankit as his partner but because of prior arrangements they were not able to pursue their dream completely until 2016 when they founded KBA Systems.
Pritesh is currently KBA's CTO and when he is not working he loves to play tennis, finding new and exciting places to visit with his family, playing with his kids.
Tom Shrader has been dealing with Watermakers and other fluid handling packages for the Offshore Oil Industry for the majority of his life. He has held multiple positions in several organizations. From his days fitting pipe to now being in sales he has a well-rounded training that allows him to be a very effective in sales.
After getting out of the Army and while attending the University of Houston he started working at Specific Equipment by learning the business by first starting in the shop as a pipe fitter and working his way up to Outside Sales selling RO Watermakers, Potable Water Pressure Sets, Helicopter Refueling Systems and Diesel Fuel Filters. There he also started to pursue his passion for technology by building Specific Equipment's website in straight HTML code, learning how best to improve the company's search engine placement and also being the company "IT Guy".
In 2004 Tom went to work in Outside Sales at Hahn Equipment. He learned about mud agitators and he received some of the strongest pump training of his life. He continued to call on the Offshore Drilling Industry and there he also started providing pumps and agitators to refineries throughout the Golden Triangle. This was where he was first introduced to CRM (Customer Relationship Management) Software.
In 2007 he returned to Specific Equipment as the Sales Manager. He helped improve the company's position in the marketplace by continuing to provide robust Offshore Duty Systems and Hands-On Service to the Offshore Oil Industry. This is also the time Tom was first introduced to LinkedIn and other Social Media Platforms. After 3 years Specific Equipment was acquired by Aqua-Chem where Tom continued his work of supplying RO Watermakers and other fluid handling packages to the Offshore Industry but now as part of a much larger team with a larger world presence. This is where Tom also continued to increase his knowledge of CRM Systems by becoming the "Super User" for both ZOHO and then SalesForce
5-1/2 years later Tom joined the Sales Team at Alfa Laval. He continued his work in Watermakers by helping redesign Alfa Laval's RO Watermaker. He also started selling Centrifuges, High Speed Separators, Mud Handling and Heat Exchangers.
After working in Sales at Alfa Laval he moved over to their Wastewater Group. He worked as a Project Manager learning the Wastewater Industry component by component and system by system. During this time Tom spent a lot of his free time taking online training to improve his knowledge of Social Greg Williams Bio Rig Lynx LLC Media and how best to use it. This is also where Tom became the Super User for the Project Portfolio Management Software.
Tom went back into Sales by working at US Watermaker supplying ROs and other fluid handling packages to the Marine and Offshore Drilling Industry. He also built and maintained several of US Watermaker's social media sites.
In October of 2018 while browsing on LinkedIn he discovered this new search engine and app called "Rig Lynx". He contacted Greg Williams to invite him to come and speak at a NOMADS (National Oil Equipment Manufacturers and Delegates Society) meeting and the rest is history.
When Tom is not working, he enjoys hunting, fishing, spending time with his family and doing volunteer work.