Grand Haven Mens Golf Assoc.
Brandon Hussing
May-June Spotlight Golfer 2022
I was born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA, the youngest of three children (two sisters) by my parents Red & Helen. My father was a Petroleum Landman, who worked for a large natural gas utility, leasing land for well drilling from farmers, and individuals, one who’s name, by the way, was Arnold Palmer in Latrobe Pennsylvania. My dad said he wasn’t very nice to him! My mother was great and basically took care of the family since my father was on the road most of the week, feeding us meals like hard boiled eggs and spinach, liver and onions, SOS. We had pork chops and round steak on the weekends when my dad was home. Typical delicacies of the 50’s and 60’s.
I attended Mt. Lebanon High School, traditionally one of the top 25 high schools in the country. We were disliked and known as “Cake eaters” (Marie-Antoinette’s-“let them eat cake”) by the other school districts in the region for our academics and sports achievements (Dave Neely and Frank Large can attest to this). Unfortunately, I didn’t take advantage of this and barely achieved a GPA that would allow me to attend a junior college. I then proceeded to move about the country with vigor trying to “find myself,” living in places like Scottsdale Arizona, working on a Dude Ranch, then on to Los Angeles. My first day arriving in Los Angeles, I was in the unemployment line and a guy came by and yelled out “does anybody want to be in a movie”? I jumped at the chance and became an extra in the movie “Soylent Green” with Charlton Heston and Edward G Robinson. As many times as I’ve watched it, unfortunately, my acting career ended up on the cutting room floor.
After a year of living paycheck to paycheck, in crappy jobs, and with expensive tastes and aspirations, I decided to try college again. My oldest sister attended and graduated from Eastern Kentucky University and fortunately for me, an old friend of hers worked in the admissions office. He pulled some strings and a got me in on the condition of NO F… up’s or you’re out! Because I had a rock collection as a kid, my father was in the Natural Gas business, and our country had just had our first energy crisis, I decided to go into Geology, because little math was required and it sounded interesting and I just saw the movie “Oklahoma Crude”. Geez, how we made decisions back in the day!
I graduated with Bachelor of Science degree in Geology and proceeded to work for a company for 13 years, back in Pittsburgh where I met my beautiful wife and partner of 33 years, Robin. We were married in 1989 and have two beautiful daughters Hannah and Madison. Both who luckily fell from their “mother’s” apple tree and were good students and now have great jobs in Interior design and Architecture and Hotel management. We are proud parents for sure! When our first daughter Hannah was born Robin resigned her position at work and stayed home to raise and provide a stable household for Hannah. We took the old school route, and were lucky to be able to do this. When Madison was born, I was working on my Masters Degree in Geology at West Virginia University, at night, when the oil and natural gas business crashed and I was laid off and out of work. After a few months of worry and unemployment I was able to land a position. Then one year later, the company was sold (more trauma) and I had the option of moving to Oklahoma with a new employer or option 2, unemployed and out of work with two new mouths to feed. We moved.
I completed my Masters degree and finally reached a goal in regards to my geology career. I was working and finding oil and gas with a major independent operator in the state of Oklahoma. Then the bottom fell out again, oil dropped to $10.00/barrel and our division was sold off and I was out of work again! Fortunately, the Vice President in charge of our division left the acquiring company and went and obtained private equity money to buy the Oklahoma and Texas assets. He offered me my old job back and a move to Grapevine Texas, near Dallas/Ft. Worth. While in Texas, we had a great time and a successful career run. One of the highlights which you all might be interested in is that Jim Nance of CBS Sports (while doing the coverage for the Byron Nelson and Colonial) came to my house for dinner. My brother-in-law’s daughter was engaged and married him and everyone was in town for the golf tournaments. I had no idea what to cook for the guy since he eats at the finest restaurants and lives the life style of the rich and famous. I decided on beer can chicken, corn on the cob and potato salad. Boy, was he impressed!! My wife and I were invited to their wedding at Pebble Beach and got to meet Arnie, Phil, Sir Nick, and Kenny G plus others. Needless to say, all I could get out when I met them was “hey nice to meet you”. What a conversationalist!
In 2004 the last company that I worked for was Grayhawk Energy, (named after the famous golf course in Scottsdale). The principles put together a great staff and concentrated on a particular stubborn rock formation that showed great promise but wasn’t consistent on its producing capabilities and return on investment. We put our heads together and as a group pioneered horizontal drilling and fracking to bring this formation to life in regards to economic returns. After two years of drilling, Chesapeake Energy made us an offer we couldn’t refuse and the principles went off and retired. Here we go again…I was out of work again. Two fellas that I worked with at Grayhawk (a drilling engineer, and landman) and I decided to try our hand at running a company so we secured private equity money and started our own company, Great Plains Operating LLC. Long story short when working for Grayhawk I recognized areas adjacent to our properties that had similar productive potential. Management agreed with the assessment but declined to pursue them because we were too far along in the find, build, and sell process that was our business model at the time.
These properties happened to be part of the Mesa Vista Ranch owned by the famous oilman, T. Boone Pickens. The Mesa Vista Ranch consisted of 65,000 acres and we as a new company approached, Mr. Pickens about leasing around 3-5,000 acres of his ranch for new drilling. We were approved by his staff to present our proposal and meet with him and give our pitch. We were told we had 15 minutes to present our leasing and drilling proposal. About 45 minutes later, Mr. Pickens stated “Brandon, I’m not sure if I want to participate in drilling this prospect. If I decline to participate in this deal, are you guys still interested in leasing it?” I immediately, without hesitation said “absolutely”!! He looked at me for about 10 seconds, then said, I’ll lease it to you guys if you give me 25% of the deal. Done deal. Over the next 1.5 years we drilled 7 horizontal wells costing about 4 million dollars each. Every well came in around 7-800 barrels of oil a day plus associated natural gas around 4,000,000 cubic feet a day. These wells typically paid themselves off in around 4 months since oil was $100/ barrel and natural gas was $4.00 per 1000 cubic feet. A third partner in our deal offered to buy our interest out because of this drilling success and my two partners and I sold our interest and as they say “we went to the house” and retired.
I am humbled but believe hard work generated some luck and fortunately we were in the right place at the right time. It has been a long bumpy journey with my career, but most importantly my family has flourished and that is my biggest accomplishment (with lots of help from Robin!).
My luck continued after retirement by moving to Flagler Beach in 2016. Joining Grand Haven Golf Club, meeting and participating with the wonderful group of guys like the Jan Marsh Group and the Dark Oak Boyz and of course the Mens Group has been a blessing. I’ve not met everyone in the club but the membership seems like a great group. Alas, my luck follows me to Grand Haven where my only sports accomplishment, (I must confess I drank 4 beers during the round) is winning the Men’s Group Shoot Out! That was such a great time and a special moment for me. I look forward to continued introductions to others in the membership in the club. The golf course needs some TLC for all the money members are paying…just saying! Hopefully we will see some improvements.
