This is a brief rundown on my work history in this industry. Prior to Peter Bawden Drilling I was with Baldwin and Knoll - a well servicing company and then L &M Oilfield - a well service rig building company. I hired on with Peter Bawden Drilling in June. 1977. Bawden later sold to Noble drilling in 1988, I remained with the company until I retired in 2010.
Phil Chatters, Personnel Manager with Peter Bawden Drilling was the person that hired me and Ben Fischer was Operations Manager. Ben recently told me he still has a copy of my employment letter from June 1977, which I now have a copy of. Perhaps Ben was keeping it close counting the days to the 3 months probationary period before eagerly waving goodbye and then got busy and forgot. Art Dumont was General Manager in head office, Calgary and Ed Clint was Contracts Manager. Ted Webber and Tom Cunningham were the only Superintendents in the Nisku office at the time, but not long after Doug Rourke transferred in. Doug had been Toolpush on Bawden Rig #31, and then Dale Baxandall followed, transferring from from rig #19 in 1979, both coming in as Superintendents.. The company was growing quickly, so to accommodate the extra staff an addition was added to the office. Over the next few years Gary Alenius, Pete Toner and Bill McLeod joined the Nisku staff as additional rig Superintendents, these three had been with Bawden International operations for a number of years before transferring to Nisku. Some of the International operations were slowing down just as the Canadian market was on the rise, so any of the rig personnel or Superintendents in those divisions were quickly transferred to Nisku.
Peter Bawden Drilling had a magazine called "doghouse doings" published a few times per year. Doug Rourke owned a copy of every edition, had them hardbound and left them in our Leduc Office. When the Leduc office closed they were sent to Houston and two years ago Julie Robertson, past President and CEO for Noble Drilling, had them packed up and donated to the Canadian Energy Museum in Devon, Alberta. Anyone who is interested in seeing these magazines must visit this Museum in Devon, if you worked for Bawden then there is a good a possibility that either a picture of yourself, your family or your new vehicle may be in there.
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