Key Leader Bios

L. Decker Dawson, Chairman of the Board of Directors

Stephen C. Jumper, President & CEO

C. Ray Tobias, Executive VP & COO

Christina W. Hagan, Executive VP & CFO 

Howell W. Pardue, Executive VP Data

K.S. Forsdick, Vice President

Mark Nelson, VP HSSE

George E. McDonald, VP Field Operations

Stuart A. Wright, VP Applied Geophysics

James Walter (Tom) Thomas, VP, Chief Geophysicist

Kevin Werth, Area Geophysicist

Sam Dobbs, Processing Manager

Melody Y. Crowl, Controller

L. Decker Dawson
Chairman of the Board of Directors

Mr. Dawson founded the Company in 1952. He served as President of the Company until being elected as Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer in January 2001. In January 2006, Mr. Dawson was reelected as Chairman of the Board of Directors and retired as Chief Executive Officer of the Company. Prior to 1952, Mr. Dawson was a geophysicist with Republic Exploration Company, a geophysical company. Mr. Dawson served as President of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists (1989-1990), received its Enterprise Award in 1997 and was awarded honorary membership in 2002. He was Chairman of the Board of Directors of the International Association of Geophysical Contractors in 1981 and is an honorary life member of such association. He was inducted into the Permian Basin Petroleum Museum’s Hall of Fame in 1997.

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Stephen C. Jumper
President & CEO

Mr. Jumper joined Dawson Geophysical Company in January of 1985 as a geophysicist.  He graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in December of 1984 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Geological Sciences, Geophysics option.  Jumper began his career with Dawson as a seismic data processor.

During his tenure with Dawson, Mr. Jumper has served the company as Technical Services Manager with an emphasis on 3-D seismic processing, Vice President of Technical Services, and currently President.  He was elected President, Chief Operating Officer, and Director of the Company in January, 2001. Jumper currently serves as President, Chief Executive Officer, and Director.

Mr. Jumper’s professional affiliations include memberships with the Society of Exploration Geophysicists, Permian Basin Geophysical Society, the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers, and the West Texas Geological Society.  He served the Permian Basin Geophysical Society as Second Vice President, First Vice President, and President from 1991 – 1994. He has made several technical presentations to various local and national professional societies meetings and co-authored a 3-D case study paper published in a joint SEG/AAPG publication.  Jumper currently serves on the University of Texas at Austin Jackson School of Geosciences Advisory Counsel.

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C. Ray Tobias
Executive VP & COO

Mr. Tobias joined the Company in 1990, and was elected Vice President in September 1997 and Executive Vice President and Director in January 2001. In January 2006, Mr. Tobias was elected Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. Mr. Tobias supervises client relationships and survey cost quotations to clients. He has served on the Board of Directors of the International Association of Geophysical Contractors and is Past President of the Permian Basin Geophysical Society. Prior to joining the Company, Mr. Tobias was employed by Geo-Search Corporation where he was an operations supervisor.

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Christina W. Hagan 
Executive VP & CFO 

Mrs. Hagan joined the Company in 1988, and was elected Chief Financial Officer and Vice President in 1997 and Senior Vice President and Secretary in January 2003. In January 2004, Mrs. Hagan was elected as Executive Vice President. Prior thereto, Mrs. Hagan served the Company as Controller and Treasurer. Mrs. Hagan is a certified public accountant.

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Howell W. Pardue
Executive VP Data Processing

Mr. Pardue spent the first four years of his career in the meteorological section of the United States Air Force. After his discharge from the Air Force in 1959, Mr. Pardue joined the Robert H. Ray Geophysical Company in its Midland, Texas analog processing center. He held several positions with Ray Geophysical, among them analog and digital processing data center manager. In 1976, he left Petty-Ray Geophysical to join Dawson Geophysical as data processing manager, a position that he still holds.  He served as a Vice President of Dawson from 1977 to 1997, as a member of the Board of Directors of Dawson from 1977 thru 2005, and was elected Executive Vice President of  Dawson Geophysical Company in 1998.

Howell W. (Hal) Pardue has been an active member of the SEG since 1976.  He served as Section Representative on the SEG Council for ten years. He also has been the Permian Basin Geophysical Society's representative to the SEG Membership Committee from 1986 to 2000, and chaired the SEG Membership Committee in 1999 and 2000. He co-authored and presented several technical papers during the last fifteen years, one of which was published in the AAPG-SEG 3D Atlas.

Hal has been a member of the Permian Basin Geophysical Society since 1960 and has served as Second Vice President (1987), First Vice President (1988), President (1989), and Chairman of the Membership Committee 1986-1996.

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K.S. Forsdick
Vice President

Mr. Forsdick joined the Company in 1993 and was elected Vice President in January 2001. Mr. Forsdick is responsible for soliciting, designing and bidding seismic surveys for prospective clients. Prior to joining the Company, Mr. Forsdick was employed by Grant Geophysical Company and Western Geophysical Company and was responsible for marketing and managing land and marine seismic surveys for domestic and international operations. He has served on the Governmental Affairs Committee of the International Association of Geophysical Contractors.

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A. Mark Nelson
VP HSSE

Mr. Nelson joined the Company in 1993 and was elected Vice President in January 2004. Mr. Nelson has over thirty years of seismic experience, holds a Master’s degree in Environmental Science and is a registered environmental professional. He has also served as the Chairman of the Health, Safety and Environmental Committee of the International Association of Geophysical Contractors, is a member of the National Registry of Environmental Professionals and of the American Society of Safety Engineers.

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George E. McDonald
VP Field Operations

Mr. McDonald joined the Company in 1972, and was elected Vice President in September 2006. Prior to election as Vice President, Mr. McDonald served as instrument operator, crew manager and field supervisor for the Company.

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Stuart A. Wright
VP Applied Geophysics

Mr. Wright, a registered professional geophysicist, joined the Company in June, 2003 as Manager of Geophysics and was elected Vice President – Applied Geophysics in April, 2007.  Mr. Wright received his Bachelor of Science degree in Geology/Geophysics from Northern Arizona University in 1980.  From 1980 to 1987 he worked in Denver, Colorado for Cities Service Company/OXY USA as an exploration geophysicist.  From 1987 to 2003 he worked for Western Geophysical Company, also in Denver, where he worked in a number of processing, management, and design geophysicist positions.  In 2003, he joined Dawson Geophysical Company as Manager of Geophysics, responsible for 3-D survey design, parameter testing and other acquisition issues.  Stuart is the author or co-author of many papers including “Fundamental 3-D Seismic Survey Design,” “Seismic Data Acquisition in Mountainous Terrain” and “Lodgepole 3-D Seismic: Design, Acquisition, and Processing.” He is a member of SEG, Denver Geophysical Society, AAPG, RMAG and the Western Interior Paleontological Society, and has been invited to speak about 3-D topics to geophysicists, geologists and engineers at local and national societies across the country. 

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James Walter (Tom) Thomas
VP Chief Geophysicist

Mr. Thomas received a BS (1976) and MS (1980) in Physics from Pittsburg State University. From 1976 to 1981 he taught secondary school math and science and served as a varsity football/track coach. From 1981-2002 he worked for Phillips Petroleum, joining Dawson Geophysical in the fall of 2002. He has over twenty-five years of exploration experience in the energy industry with thirteen years of actual field experience with 2-D and 3-D production and research seismic crews. He is a recognized leader in the geophysical sector for the innovation and application of 3-D seismic acquisition and specialized processing techniques. His current interests are concentrated in the development and application of seismic technology for Dawson Geophysical Company. Tom holds four patents in the field of seismic data acquisition and processing and has published his concepts and methods in geophysical literature.  He is a member of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists, the Geophysical Society of Oklahoma City, the Tulsa Geophysical Society, Permian Basin Geophysical Society, and Sigma Pi Sigma (Physics Honor Society). 

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Kevin Werth
Area Geophysicist

Mr. Werth supports 2-D and 3-D design and seismic acquisitions in the Mid-Continent and West Texas areas as well as the Appalachian Basin in the Northeast U.S. He received a B.S. degree in Liberal Arts at Hastings College in Nebraska and has completed postgraduate in Geology in Dallas, Texas. Mr. Werth has worked for twenty-seven years in the seismic industry, most recently ten years as a Design Geophysicist with WesternGeco in Oklahoma City/Midland/Denver and the past five-and-a half-years as an Area Geophysicist with Dawson Geophysical Company in Oklahoma City.

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Sam Dobbs
Processing Manager

Mr. Dobbs is a graduate of Eastern New Mexico University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Geology. He has over 27 years of experience in processing land and transition zone data sets with an emphasis in the U.S. and the Gulf of Mexico. Mr. Dobbs has been manager of Data Processing for four years and came to Dawson from WesternGeco (Western Geophysical) where he was the U.S. Land Processing Manager. Sam oversees Dawson’s processing operations in Houston, Midland and Oklahoma City.

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Melody Y. Crowl
Controller & Treasurer

Mrs. Crowl joined the Company as Controller in 2005 and was elected as Treasurer in September 2006. Mrs. Crowl has over twenty years accounting experience including treasury, internal and external audit, and financial accounting. Mrs. Crowl is a certified public accountant.

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