Management Team
Daniel J. Piette
Chief Executive Officer
During Mr. Piette’s 30 year professional career he has held executive management roles in six start-up companies providing new technology to the Energy Industry. Over the last seven years he led OpenSpirit Corporation as President and CEO to significant growth resulting in its recent acquisition by TIBCO Software Inc. (NASDAQ: TIBX). OpenSpirit focuses on providing integration solutions for upstream applications and data to E&P companies.
Dan also currently serves on the Board of Directors of Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS), a major oil and gas services company whose stock trades on the Oslo stock exchange (OSE:PGS).
Since graduating with a B.S. in mining engineering with honors from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1980, Piette has held a number of executive management roles in the oil and gas industry, including business unit manager for the land acquisition systems group at Input/Output, President and CEO of Bell Geospace, and Vice President and General Manager of the Asia Pacific region for Landmark Graphics.
John Mouton, Ph.D.
Co-Founder and Chairman
For the last 30 years, Dr. Mouton has focused his career on the development and introduction of game-changing technologies in the oil and gas Industry. John co-founded Object Reservoir, Inc in 1995 and, prior to that, was a co-founder of Landmark Graphics Corporation in 1982. John’s professional experience spans a number of fields: mathematical physics, geophysics, aerospace and computer systems engineering, marketing, and strategic planning.
John has served on the boards of directors of the Cyberan Corporation, Cyberan Geophysical Corporation, Landmark Graphics Corporation, HyperMedia Corporation, and Petrotechnical Open Software Corporation (“POSC” – now called “Energistics”). He has also served as adviser for a number of entrepreneurs and companies.
Mouton has a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of California at Los Angeles.
Steven Wells
Chief Financial Officer
Steven joined Object Reservoir in May 2008 and was named the Chief Financial Officer of the company in October 2009. Prior to Object Reservoir, Steven had a 21 year career with Amoco Corporation with assignments in Scotland, Morocco, Tunisia, Jordan, Egypt and the USA and ultimately with BPAmoco as manager of international new venture business services in Houston. After being away from the oil industry for a few years while he owned his own business and provided financial consulting services to two non-profit organizations, Steven returned to the oil industry in 2005 to assist BP and the Russian oil giant, Rosneft, in forming a unique joint venture operating company on Sakhalin Island.
Steven received his Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA, Management) degree from the University of Oklahoma in 1978 and received an MBA from the Bauer College of Business at the University of Houston in May 2011.
Mark Miller, Ph.D.
Chief Technical Officer
Mark A. Miller, PhD, PE has nearly 38 years experience as a petroleum engineering practitioner and educator, specializing in reservoir engineering, reservoir simulation, the reservoir engineering aspects of natural gas and naturally fractured reservoirs, thermal oil recovery, and petrophysics. After working for Getty Oil Company in a variety of petroleum engineering capacities, Dr. Miller earned a PhD in Petroleum Engineering from Stanford U. Dr. Miller subsequently served on the petroleum engineering faculty of the U. of Texas at Austin until establishing a consulting practice in 2001. From 2002 to 2006, Dr. Miller served as Senior Reservoir Engineer for Object Reservoir before returning to his consulting practice. He currently serves as Chairman of Object Reservoir’s Strategic Planning Committee.
Dr. Miller has conducted research, consulted, and taught courses in reservoir engineering, reservoir simulation, natural gas engineering, naturally fractured reservoirs, hydrocarbon fluid behavior, petrophysics, and thermal oil recovery. Consulting and/or training has been conducted for Schlumberger, IBM, Tenneco Oil, Amerada Hess, ARCO, Chevron, Sonat, MCN Corp., CALTEX, Texaco, Shell, Japan Vietnam Petroleum Co., Vietnam Petroleum Institute, Tecpetrol, EOG Resources, Rosneft, Medco Energi, PEMEX, HOT Engineering, Centric Energy, INA, and YPF, as well as for the many clients of Object Reservoir.
Morris Covington
Vice President, Software Development and Marketing
Morris has 25 years’ experience in the formation, management, and development of industry technology companies. He has managed professional services and sales and marketing organizations, served on boards of directors, supported acquisitions and mergers, and lead strategic operations. Most recently, he managed the EAME (Europe, Africa, Middle East) operations of Knowledge Systems Inc. KSI was acquired by Halliburton in May 2008. Previously, Covington was the EVP of Sales and Marketing and on the Board of Landmark Graphics from 1983 until 1989. The company had gone public and was nearing an acquisition by Halliburton. After Landmark, Covington formed DRC Advisors and provided management and strategic marketing services to a variety of clients, including Object Reservoir, Knowledge Systems, BP, Innerlogix, and Zebra Imaging.
Out of graduate school, Covington formed CRC International, a company that developed and marketed the Industry’s first dynamic pipeline simulators (numerical). CRC was acquired by Intercomp, which ultimately became SSI. Both companies were leading technology companies in reservoir simulation and production applications.
Morris has a B.S. in Physics and a Ph.D. in Electronic Engineering, both from the University of Maryland.
Steve Ward
Vice President, Applied Technology
Steve began his career serving in the United States Air Force from 1986 through 1991. Ward was a captain and served as a flight operations officer. In addition, he managed Space Shuttle/Inertial Upper Stage flight operations and coordinated mission simulations for astronauts and mission control teams. Ward was in charge of the successful launches of the Magellan, Galileo, Ulysses, DSP, and multiple TDRS satellites. Prior to joining Object Reservoir, Ward was an Engineering Research Associate IV at Applied Research Laboratories from 1993 to 1999. While at Applied Research Laboratories, Ward served as the software lead engineer for the development of VXI-based Navy ground station management and operation of TRANSIT satellite constellation. Steve Ward came to Object Reservoir in 1999 as a software engineer, and was promoted to Vice President of Professional Services in 2001. Ward later became the Vice President of Applied Technology.
Ward earned his B.S. and M.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin.