Robert D. “Bob” Langenkamp was born in the Cushing, Oklahoma,field in 1913, where his father worked as a pipeline engineer. Cushing was thenthe largest field in the world. His first job was as a roughneck on a drillingrig in West Texas. In the next 25 years he worked as a field mechanic, powdermonkey, line walker, oil telegrapher, pipeliner, and guager. As such heexperienced firsthand the numerous new technological developments that modernizedthe industry. Following his field experience, Langenkamp moved to Pittsburg,Pennsylvania, where he worked in the Gulf Oil Company headquarters as editor ofthe Orange Disc, the company’smagazine and sometimes lectured on oil and gas matters. Upon retirement after 41years in the oil industry, Langenkamp continued to track the progress of theindustry, and in 1974 compiled the Handbookof Industry Terms and Phrases and TheIllustrated Petroleum Reference Dictionary. The former more than doubled inlength and eventually went through five editions and the latter through fourbefore Langenkamp’s death in 2003 at 90 years of age. R. Dobie Langenkamp, Robert’s son, was born in 1936 and alsoraised in the oil patch of Oklahoma. Both of his grandfathers were Oklahoma pioneersin the 1920s in oil development. The younger Langenkamp worked as an oilfieldroustabout, a pump station operator, and a refinery laborer while he wasattending school. After Stanford and Harvard Law School he practiced oil andgas law in Oklahoma and twice was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary for Oiland Gas for the Department of Energy, where one of his responsibilities was tosupervise the Naval Petroleum Reserve. After service in the government hefounded and ran his own small independent oil and gas exploration company for15 years. Later he was appointed Professor of Energy and Director of theNational Energy Law and Policy Institute at Tulsa University Law School. DobieLangenkamp has also served as energy consultant for the State Department andDepartment of Energy in Kazakhstan, the Republic of Georgia, Sao Tome, andIraq. He has lectured on international oil and gas law in Ghana, Angola,Uganda, Egypt, and Argentina. He currently lives in Tulsa and writes, lectures,and consults on energy issues.
