John Lee holds the Peterson Endowed Chair and is Professor of Petroleum Engineering at Texas A&M U. in College Station, Texas. After receiving a PhD degree from the Georgia Inst. of Technology in 1963, he worked as a Senior Research Specialist with Exxon Production Research Co. and as a reservoir engineer with Exxon Co. U.S.A. operating districts in south Texas until 1968. He was Associate Professor of Petroleum Engineering at Mississippi State U. from 1968 to 1971 and Technical Advisor to Exxon Co. U.S.A. for integrated major field studies from 1971 to 1977. Lee joined Texas A&M in 1977 and joined S.A. Holditch and Assocs. Inc. in 1980, from which he retired as Executive Vice President in 1999. He has received numerous awards from SPE, including the Reservoir Engineering Award (1986), the John Franklin Carll Award (1995), Honorary Membership (2001), and the Anthony Lucas Award (2003). He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering (1993) and the Georgia Tech Academy of Distinguished Engineering Alumni (1994). He also has been faculty adviser to the SPE student chapter during several school years.

Robert A. Wattenbarger has been a professor of petroleum engineering at Texas A&M U. since 1983. Previously, he worked for Mobil, Mobil Research, and Sinclair Oil companies from 1958 to 1969. From 1969 to 1979, he was vice president and director of Scientific Software-Intercomp Inc. Since 1979, he has consulted through Wattenbarger and Assocs. He holds BS and MS degrees from the U. of Tulsa and a PhD degree from Stanford U., all in petroleum engineering.