Permian Basin Petroleum Association to honor Dick Sivalls
January 13, 2024
Midland Reporter-Telegram
By Mella McEwen
Leaders of the Permian Basin oil and gas industry will gather Thursday, January 18 at the Petroleum Club to honor Dick Sivalls as the Permian Basin Petroleum Association’s Top Hand.
“Dick Sivalls is a fantastic man who exemplifies all of the best traits of a PBPA Top Hand. His leadership in the industry, the PBPA and the communities in the Permian Basin, especially Odessa,” Ben Shepperd, president of the PBPA, told the Reporter-Telegram by email.
He added, “Dick is a legendary engineer who has trained many engineers in industry today. He has also served as a distinguished PBPA chairman helping us develop into the organization we are today.”
Sivalls himself figures his family has been in the energy business for 123 years. “I think I figured out my grandfather started in Ohio in 1900,” he told the Reporter-Telegram in a telephone interview.
His grandfather’s company — Black, Sivalls and Bryson — was similar to Sivalls Industries, making oilfield equipment.
“There was no good way to move the products he built other than a team of mules and a wagon,” he recalled. “They needed a facility close to where the product was being used.”
The company built a plant in...