Kevin D. Lacy could not have imagined that a speech he heard during his senior year at Claremore High School would help him find his career, launch a lifelong attachment to The University of Tulsa, and give him a significant way to pay tribute to his parents, E.E. and Dorothy Lacy. Sometimes a new piece of information has that power, and on one particular day, two petroleum engineering students from The University of Tulsa, Ron Hinn (’77) and Shari Dunn (’78), gave such a talk at his school about TU and its petroleum engineering program.

The topic piqued Lacy’s interest, so he followed up with Dr. John Day, head of TU’s petroleum engineering department, “… and he made me an offer that if I attended and did well in my classes, he would find a scholarship to help me with the costs,” Lacy recalls. “I did, he did, and by my junior year, I had a full tuition scholarship. The serendipitous combination of the class visit, Dr. Day’s personal effort, and the scholarship awards made it possible for Lacy to attend TU and major in petroleum engineering.

From there, Lacy became engaged in TU campus activities, joining Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity and also developing his leadership skills as president of the TU Student Association. This was quite an effort considering that most of his classes were on the North Campus, quite a trek from the main campus.
“Prior to that, I had never had a meaningful leadership position,” he said in an interview with the engineering school newsletter. “It really helped me mature and develop. At the time, that was really a rare opportunity for an engineering student from North Campus to be SA President.”

He graduated with honors in 1980 with a Bachelor of Science degree in petroleum engineering, joining Chevron as a drilling engineer in Louisiana. Following a series of assignments, he played a key role in integrating production assets during the Chevron and Gulf merger in 1984. Economic analysis models and procedures that he developed during the merger are still widely used within the company. In 1989, he obtained a Master in Business Administration from The University of California at Berkeley while working in San Francisco.

By then, Lacy had already worked in Shanghai, China, and a subsequent assignment took him to Angola, where he served as manager of production operations for Cabinda Gulf Oil Company. With the knowledge gained from his international jobs, Lacy returned to the United States in 1995 and began working with teams at Chevron to develop staffing and personnel programs for international employees. In 1997, he was named general manager of operations for Chevron U.K. Ltd. in Aberdeen, Scotland.

Subsequent assignments led to management positions with Chevron Petroleum Technology, Well Engineering Operations for ChevronTexaco Corporation, Drilling and Completions at BP America, Inc., and he was named Senior Vice President of Global Drilling and Completions for Talisman Energy, one of Canada’s largest oil companies.

He said in an interview, “I think the emphasis on both the fundamentals and on key PE concepts has served me very well technically. The TU emphasis on the whole student and classes outside of the engineering college were very valuable as well. Finally, the exceptional diversity and global culture at TU gave me a great appreciation of other countries and cultures – and having traveled to more than 40 countries, it gave me a real head start.”

Although his work has taken him all over the world, and he lives several hundred miles away in The Woodlands, Texas, Kevin Lacy has not forgotten his alma mater.

In 1986, he became a member of the TU Petroleum Engineering Industry Advisory Board and served until 2005. During that time, he led the board as vice chair and then chair. In 1992, he led a team to review the petroleum engineering program and recommend targets for enrollment, student body profile, recruiting and scholarship programs. The study led to the establishment of the Kermit Brown Endowment Fund for Petroleum Engineering; Lacy chaired the start-up funding effort.

He was instrumental in securing support from Chevron, both in the form of matching support for his personal giving and through a major corporate sponsorship. The support has included scholarship and research funding. At one point, his personal efforts produced substantial enrollment of students from Angola. He also arranged resources to establish the ChevronTexaco Center of Research Excellence (CORE) at TU, an advanced research facility.

In 2001, Kevin Lacy was inducted into the College of Engineering Natural Sciences Hall of Fame in recognition of his outstanding career accomplishments and his loyalty to his alma mater.

A member of the esteemed Circle Society and the Chapman Legacy Society, Kevin has been a committed supporter of the petroleum engineering program and other TU initiatives. In 2002, he served as honorary chair of the College of Engineering and Natural Sciences Annual Fund, and he was an Annual Fund Challenger for the college for three years.

In 2003, he established a scholarship fund to pay tribute to his beloved parents: The Dr. E. E. and Dorothy Lacy Memorial Scholarship Endowment Fund. Then in 2017, he committed a generous estate gift to fortify that namesake scholarship fund.

Thanks to Kevin Lacy’s generosity and commitment to helping others, young men and women following in his footsteps in TU’s engineering programs will have the means to fulfill their aspirations at TU and beyond.