ARCO Alumni

Barry Shelden joined Noble Energy as Director of Asset Development, International Division in August.  He credits his ARCO network and his international experience as key factors in securing his new role.

“Noble Energy is in a lucrative position where we are growing from a company heavily focused on North America and our Gulf of Mexico assets to doubling in size as we build our international presence.  Our recent successes in Israel and West Africa are positioning Noble Energy to play a key role amongst the Tier One independents,” says Thomas Smouse, Human Resources Director and Vastar/ARCO alumnus.

Shelden was attracted to Noble Energy because of its small company culture and its position as it transitions from 12 billion market cap to a bigger player.  “At Noble Energy leadership enables employees to wear multiple hats and have multiple roles.  So much is going on.  Our huge projects in Israel, West Africa and Gulf of Mexico enable me to use my twelve plus years of international experience to support high impact exploration prospects, explains Shelden.”

In an environment of cost cutting and asset sales, Noble Energy is actively recruiting, with 35 open jobs as of this writing. “Our hiring outreach includes staying in touch with interns, using our employees’ networks and the Noble Energy corporate website to source talent.  In excess of 30% of hires are through employee referrals and our acceptance rate from interview is over 80%.  Our CEO is a big part of why people want to work at Noble Energy. People are encouraged to think outside the box.  Our hiring in 2009 totaled 145, most of whom were technical,” says Smouse. “We have traditionally run lean on staff and that played to our advantage, particularly in this environment.  There is still a lot of activity ahead of us and we leverage this to our advantage.”

Noble Energy has hired a number of ARCO alumni from CEO Chuck Davidson and COO Dave Stover to VP of HR Lee Robison and Chief General Counsel Arne Johnson. Others include: Terry Gerhart, Chip Rimer, Lawson Freeman, Jeff Schwarz, Shawn Conner, Donnie Moore, Gary Willingham, John Lewis, Dee Cochran, Don Weisinger, Barry Guise, Vincent Caldarera, Paul Backhaus, Wes Reeves, Charlie Hill, Glenda Bey, Robbie Cole, Pat McKern, Brent Murphy, Kevin Vorhaben, Bob Anderson, Phil Sandoz, Kirk Moore, Janet Fagan, Irene DeArza, Bob Marlatt and Joe McCutcheon.

Noble Energy Inc, founded in 1932 is one of the U.S.’s leading independent energy companies engaged in worldwide oil and gas exploration and production.  In January 2009 Noble announced the largest exploration discovery in its history at Tamar, offshore Israel.  Read more about Noble Energy.