WELDON SMITH, CHAIRMAN

     Big "6" Drilling Company is generally considered as having pioneered the "turnkey" contract for oil and gas companies along the Gulf Coast.

     There are three types of contracts that drilling companies provide the oil and gas industry, according to Weldon Smith, chairman of the board of Big "6" Drilling Company.   They are "daywork", "footage", and "turnkey".   Big "6" management believes that the industry, particularly small oil and gas operators, are  in need of a drilling company that contracts to drill wells at its own risk and expense and furnish everything including a log to total depth, the point at which the contract is completed.  In 1949, Big "6" first offered the "turnkey" contract an today it is considered one of the major reasons for the company's success.

     Weldon Smith has been a part of Big "6" Drilling Company since 1949, only four years after it was organized.  Original owners of the firm were H. Buddy Andres, president, J. Brown Cutbirth, and Walter Stockard.  The drilling trio named their company after Big "6" Sullivan, a 300-pound drilling superintendent for Goldrus Drilling Company, who was originally in the deal, but chose after only a few weeks to leave.

     After four years as president of the company, Andres realized he was more interested in being a drilling and production manger than running the company, so he resigned and went on to become one of the most respected drilling and production men in the business.

     Upon his resignation in December  1948, Smith, who was assistant sales manager for Hunt Tool Company in Houston, was offered the presidency by Stockard.  Smith accepted the position of president and moved into his offices in the Oil & Gas Building at Dallas and Louisiana in downtown Houston.  Today Smith smiles when he recalls what this position entailed.  He was not only president of BIG "6", but also the bookkeeper. He had one office employee, a part-time secretary.

     From the beginning , stockholders made it a policy not to spend money that the company did not have.  As in the case of Weldon Smith, as president he was to continue to keep the books until the demand for rigs indicated that a second rig should be purchased.  At that time, he hired a full-time secretary/bookkeeper and continued adding to this responsibilities as president.

     The business outlook for Spring 1949 looked good, Weldon Smith remembers.  In May of that year, a new Cardwell trailer rig was acquired.

     Since Smith's background was in sales, he made contacts and found enough customers for the company that Big "6" was able to keep its rigs running more than 90 percent of the time.  This University of Texas graduate with a degree in business administration mentions, "We had a winning combination of employees and profits were consistently good."

     "Expansion may have been slower than some drilling companies, "Smith says, "but our company policy was never to buy an additional rig until there was no debt against the rigs already owned."  Big "6" purchased five rigs between 1945 and 1981.

     "Because we were cautions and considered our profit line, when the boom ended in late 1982, Big "6" was not financially extended and we have managed to stay in business.  In fact, we have never had an activity figure of less than 78 percent and it has seldom been under 90 percent.  "Smith maintains.

     Weldon Smith has for many years been on the board of directors of I.A.D.C.    (International Association of Drilling Contractors), and has been active in Grace Presbyterian Church.  He has been a member of the board of Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary for 17 years, and served in several capacities with the Y.M.C.A. and the Downtown Exchange Club.  He has served on the National Petroleum Council, is a member of the Houston Club and has participated in numerous civic activities.