Alden J. Laborde

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Alden J. Laborde , called Doc Laborde , (born December 18, 1915 in Marksville (Louisiana) , † June 6, 2014 in New Orleans ) was an American pioneer of offshore technology and entrepreneur.

Life

Laborde was the son of teachers and began studying at Louisiana State University in 1932 during the Great Depression , while completing Reserve Officer Training (ROTC), and was at the Naval Academy in Annapolis from 1934 to 1938. His eyesight, which was not quite optimal by the standards of the time, prevented a career in the US Navy. During World War II he commanded smaller ships, trained reserve officers and was an engineer on convoy escort ships. After the war, he was in the offshore oil exploration industry developing in the Gulf of Mexico, initially with Kerr-McGee Oil Industries in Morgan City, Louisiana as an overseer for the offshore business. Oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico began in the 1930s, but only picked up after the war, after legal problems ( Tidelands Controversy ) had been resolved and after the impetus from the increased demand for oil in World War II. The oil drilling companies involved had mostly gained their experience on land and first had to gain experience offshore.

He developed a floating, transportable oil drilling platform ( English Submersible Rig ) to replace the fixed drilling platforms that had been used until then and, after Kerr-McGee did not want to build it, founded it with John Barnsdall (developer of an oil drilling platform named after him, Barnsdall Rig (1949) and owner of the general patents on the method of floating oil platforms) and with financial support from Charles Murphy of the Murphy Oil Company in El Dorado (Arkansas) his own company (ODECO, Ocean Drilling and Exploration Company). The platform (named Mr. Charlie after the founder of Murphy Oil) was built at the Alexander Shipyard in New Orleans and rented from Shell for oil drilling in the Mississippi Delta for $ 6,000 a day in 1954 and has been in operation for over three decades. The first use received a lot of media attention. In addition to other oil drilling platforms at ODECO, including one of the first semi-submersible drilling rigs for greater water depths (Ocean Driller 1963), he also developed special supply ships for the oil industry and, with partners (including two of his brothers), founded Tidewater in New Orleans, which is the largest shipping company for offshore supply ships was with up to 350 ships. In 1977 he officially retired, but was still active, for example, in founding Gulf Island Fabrication , of which he was CEO from 1986 to 1990 and on whose board of directors he was until 2012.

In 1985 he was inducted into the National Business Hall of Fame by Fortune Magazine . He was most active in philanthropy with the Catholic Church and was a good friend of the former Archbishop of New Orleans Philip Hannan .

After an interview in Offshore Magazine, Laborde also gave George HW Bush start-up assistance in founding his offshore drilling company Zapata Off-Shore (Zapata Petroleum Company), with the sale of which Bush financed the early days of his political career.

During the Second World War he married Margaret Bienvenue and had two sons and three daughters with her.

Fonts

  • My life and times, Laborde Printing Corp. 1997

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Laborde platform could operate in deeper water, up to 40 feet instead of 20 feet at Barnsdall
  2. ↑ Today at the International Petroleum Museum in Morgan City and Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark
  3. ^ Previously, disused ships of the US Navy were used in the Gulf
personal data
SURNAME Laborde, Alden J.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Doc Laborde (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American engineer and entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH December 18, 1915
PLACE OF BIRTH Marksville (Louisiana)
DATE OF DEATH June 6, 2014
Place of death New Orleans