Industry veteran Daniel B. Cannon launched his career decades ago by cofounding a company which, as he half-jokingly recalls, began with “five employees and a credit card.” The year was 1977, a time when oil sold for less than $40 per barrel. Thoughts of U.S. energy independence were merely a pipe dream. Indeed, president de jour Jimmy Carter was warning of an impending U.S. energy crisis.

Despite those shaky times, in the ensuing 36 years Cannon’s career has lived several rather successful lifetimes as it evolved alongside the fast-changing midstream industry. The same can be said for his Valerus colleague Steven R. Gill, who’s been working in the industry since 1980. With about 70 years combined experience, the men sat down with Midstream Business to reflect on the successes, struggles and advancements they’ve witnessed within the industry.

“I’ve had a very blessed and wonderful career,” says Cannon, senior vice president of global operations at Valerus. “If I could have, as an 18-year-old man, plotted out my career, I don’t think I could have done a better job than I was able to do. It’s all about being able to take advantage of opportunities when they’re there.

“I’m very proud about the jobs we’ve been able to create in the past 36 years, as well as the advancements we’ve seen as the industry changed. We were able to adapt to it and drive it in a better direction. It is all very rewarding.”

Cannon began his career by helping his father co-found LCM, a startup that initially consisted of five employees. Having started at LCM as a field technician, Cannon ultimately worked to become the company’s chief operating officer, a position he held until the company was sold. At the time of its sale to Universal Compression Partners LP in 2001, about 300 people were on the LCM payroll. Cannon went on to work as Universal’s director of business development and acquisitions for international and domestic operations until 2003. He joined Valerus in 2004.

Just as Cannon had, Gill followed his father’s footsteps straight into the energy industry. His dad worked as a design engineer for Dresser-Rand, which is where Gill took his first job in 1980 after graduating from Texas A&M University with a mechanical engineering degree. He specialized in rotating equipment sales. Gill remained there for 15 years before transitioning to Hanover Compression Co. in 1995. There, he worked as international vice president and vice president of total solutions. He remained there until 2006.

“During that time I learned a lot about the midstream business in the processing, treating and production equipment arena,” Gill tells Midstream Business. “We built the Hanover international group from zero to close to $1 billion when Hanover and Universal merged in 2006.”

(Ironically, Universal and Hanover would merge to become Exterran, meaning both Gill and Cannon played a role in shaping the company that would become the main competitor to their current employer, Valerus.)

Gill currently serves as senior vice president of commercial at Valerus.

Of all the changes Cannon has witnessed throughout his nearly 40-year career, he says he’s most struck by the progress made in two areas: emissions and safety. Equipment in the 1970s wasn’t nearly as efficient or environmentally friendly as it is today, he says, adding that the percentage of air emission output is lower today that it has ever been in the modern era of the U.S.

“It’s all because of the advent of producing natural gas for power generation versus coal, as well as some of the other advances on the natural gas side. Technology is changing and equipment is changing —and it’s all for the better.”

Great strides have been made in the world of safety as well. Back in the day, some smaller companies considered safety an afterthought. They weren’t doing as much to protect workers from harm as they no doubt should have been. Cannon speaks from personal experience, as there were times when his own safety was compromised on the job.

“A few times when we first got into the business working for some of the smaller oil and gas companies, they would make it very clear that if you didn’t think it was safe, they would get someone else to do that job for you,” he recalls. “Many times, we left that company for safety reasons, to go work for a safer company. Today, even the smaller companies out there consider safety their No. 1 priority.”

The shale revolution

Of course, perhaps the greatest change Cannon has witnessed continues to unfold before him, as the shale revolution takes hold in plays throughout the country.

“Technology has just advanced so much. If you think back just six years ago, in the U.S., no one ever thought we could truly have energy independence on our own,” he says. “Now it looks feasible that we can. That’s because of technology and technology changes.”

Gill says he expects the shale fever to continue spreading internationally.

“What the shale plays have done in the U.S. has been remarkable,” he says. “There’s no telling what’s going to happen over the next eight years. But what we’ve been seeing in the U.S., we’re starting to see come true on all the other continents. With our vision of being a global company, we think there’s an extremely bright future all over the world.”

Many challenges of the industry’s past—such as those aforementioned safety factors and inefficient equipment— were overcome by a competitive spirit among the industry’s giants, says Gill. As the oil-and-gas scene heated up, companies were charged with putting out the best and most effective technologies in order to keep a leading edge. This helped create some of today’s most impressive and advanced pieces of equipment.

“Each company is pushed to innovate,” says Gill. “And I think that the Caterpillar, GE and Solars of the world were pushed to study how to reduce emissions and increase efficiency from a fuel standpoint.

“With Valerus, as we saw the midstream business grow, an entrepreneurial group of individuals got together to figure out how they could gather more efficiently than the companies that did it the methodical, old-fashioned way.”

For Cannon, many of the challenges he’s faced on the road to success involved the cyclical nature of the energy business. While he’s experienced the highs of helping grow three businesses organically, he’s also experienced three economic downturns. He says the most recent recession of 2008-09 appears to have hit the hardest, though he adds it may just seem that way because it’s freshest in his memory.

“When that financial market melted, it affected us all,” he says. “But it was guilt by association. It wasn’t something we did as an industry to drive it down. When you have those down cycles, there are difficult decisions as leadership you have to make.”

Yet still, Cannon says good days are ahead for the midstream.

“The future is very bright,” he says. “With the abundance of natural gas, we seem to be closer to reaching a balanced point. The energy can make money, and it is becoming more affordable for the consumer. We’ll reach that equilibrium before long. I’m very bullish on this.”

Gill agrees and says he’s particularly excited for the young workers just beginning their industry careers.

“I think our industry and business has a very bright future,” he says. “I want to see these young kids come into this organization and become a part of it.”