Bear Creek

Nathan R. Hutchings, PhD., President and Chief Operating Officer

Dr. Nathan Hutchings is Bear Creek's President and Chief Operating Officer.  Nate earned his B.S. in Biology and Chemistry from Eureka College (Eureka, Illinois), where he was trained through the Ronald Reagan Leadership Program.   Nate subsequently earned his Ph.D. in Genetics from The University of Iowa (Iowa City, Iowa) and conducted Post-doctoral research in Cell & Structural Biology at The University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign). Nate was an Assistant Professor of Biology and Co-director of the Interdisciplinary Experimentation and Scholarship (IDEAS) Program at Northwestern State University (Natchitoches, Louisiana). Nate subsequently became Chair and Associate Professor of the Department of Biological Sciences at Louisiana State University in Shreveport.  At LSUS, Nate led the development of several graduate programs and was the founder and Executive Director of LEAD-LSU, a three-year leadership education and development program for undergraduate students. In addition to his academic, administrative, and leadership development duties, Nate's & his award-winning team of student researchers' efforts resulted in advances in our understanding of cellular motility, enhanced tertiary recovery process for shallow oil wells, a method for real-time quantification of oil production from stripper wells, and bioremediation technique developments. Nate has successfully gained funding from a variety of sources, has published several peer-reviewed scientific papers, and co-edited an interdisciplinary research symposium book.  In 2007, Nate was honored by the Shreveport Chamber of Commerce and SB Magazine as one of Shreveport's top ‘40 Under 40'.

Nate joined the Bear Creek family in December, 2007 as the Assistant Operations Manager was named President and Chief Operating Officer in February of 2009.  Nate provides day-to-day leadership and operational support for all divisions of Bear Creek as well as technical support and technology development expertise to advance the Oil & Gas industry's practical solutions for spill clean up, water reclamation & recycling, waste management and he is the co-Inventor of Bear Creek's Green Machine.

Bob McGinnis, P.E., Executive Vice President of Engineering

Bob McGinnis, P.E., has been actively engaged in the domestic oil and gas business for nearly thirty (30) years. After receiving his engineering degree from Louisiana Tech University in 1978, Bob started his career as a Production Engineer with Shell Oil Company in New Orleans assigned to the Critical Sour Gas Group handing deep, high pressure sour gas wells in Mississippi and East Texas. Other assignments within Shell included Production Engineer for North Louisiana and East Texas and Reservoir Engineer for South Texas. After Shell, Bob worked as a Production Engineer for Superior Oil Company handling wells in South Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico. An engineering job with Texas Oil and Gas prompted a move to Shreveport, Louisiana, in 1981. Bob has worked out of Shreveport ever since with job assignments with Transcontinental Oil and Sugar Creek Producing Company.

In 1990, Bob formed McGinnis Industries, Inc., a consulting petroleum engineering and wellsite supervision firm. Business growth over the years opened the opportunity to expand into contract production surveillance, contract operations, and environmental consulting while maintaining the core business of consulting petroleum engineering and wellsite supervision. Clients included Hunt Petroleum, Comstock Resources, KCS Medallion, Stat Land Production, Cypress Operating, Vintage Petroleum, Will-Drill Production, and others.

McGinnis Industries, Inc., was merged with Bear Creek Environmental Systems, LLC, of Shreveport, Louisiana, in March 2006 forming Bear Creek Engineering. Range Resources, Clayton Williams Energy, Ensight, TMR, and Chesapeake have been added as clients.

Bob has been very active in the Society of Petroleum Engineers. He has served on the society-wide Well Completion, Drilling, and Computer Applications Committees chairing the latter. He has held several offices in Lou-Ark Section including Chairman. He has authored three SPE papers and been published in the "Journal of Petroleum Technology" and "American Oil and Gas Reporter".

Bob has testified as an expert witness in petroleum engineering before the Louisiana Office of Conservation, Louisiana 1st District Court, and Louisiana 2nd District Court. He is licensed as a Professional Engineer in Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas.

Ronnie Humphrey, Vice President of Fluid Management

Ronnie Humphrey earned his Bachelor of Science and Technology degree from Northwestern State University (Natchitoches, Louisiana) in 1984. Ronnie brings over 25 years of experience in trucking and operations management to the Bear Creek Services management team. While the majority of Ronnie's experience comes from the management of concrete ready mix production facilities in Georgia and Louisiana, he also has extensive experience as a field engineer for the Peter Kiewit Construction Company on large interstate and bridge projects in Maryland, South Carolina, Oklahoma and Louisiana. Ronnie also served several years as a department manager for the Westinghouse Corporation at a Department of Energy Nuclear Weapons production facility located in South Carolina. Thru the years, Ronnie has been the recipient of many awards for his outstanding achievement in procurement and management practices including the George Westinghouse Signature of Excellence Award from the Westinghouse Corporation.  Ronnie joined the Bear Creek Family in 2008.

 

 

Scott Wilhite, Vice President of Business Development

Scott earned a Bachelor of Arts in Criminal Justice from Louisiana State University in Shreveport, after which he had a decade of enviable success in sales and marketing within the Anheuser-Busch families. During that time Scott oversaw sales and marketing efforts for the world's largest brewer in St. Louis, San Diego, Virginia and Louisiana, increasing sales and market share in each region where he worked. He left the position of Sales Manager at the Anheuser-Busch Distributor in Shreveport in order to establish and run his own business in the Dallas area. Scott joined the Bear Creek Family as an Environmental Specialist and Business Development manager in 2006, and was subsequently promoted to Vice-President of Business Development in 2009.

As Vice President of Business Development, Scott is charged with developing and expanding Bear Creek's business, overseeing the sales & client relations staff, and building the Bear Creek brand-name through the use of specific marketing strategies and client relations. Scott brings an impressive record of marketing experience and sales success to the position.

 

Xingwen Chen, PhD., Director of GIS Services

Dr. Xingwen Chen graduated from Wuhan University, China, with a BS degree in Photogrammetry & Remote Sensing. He earned his master's degree in Agronomy from Kansas State University (Manhattan, Kansas) conducting research that reconstructs plant 3D structures in computer using ordinary cameras and stereo-photogrammetric methodology. He earned his Ph.D in Agricultural & Biological Engineering from Purdue University (West Lafayette, Indiana) focusing on environmental assessment using holistic mathematical models and geographic information system (GIS).

Xingwen has more than 20 years of experience in geospatial information management in the fields of GIS and environmental assessment. He has led and conducted numerous GIS projects that involve with topographic mapping, enterprise geospatial database design and management, as well as customized GIS applications development such as internet GIS. Xingwen served as the Louisiana State Rep of the South Central Arc User Group (SCAUG) in 2006. He established the North Louisiana GIS User Group and served as president in 2007. Xingwen joined the Bear Creek family in March 2008.

 

Wally Hay, Safety & Loss Prevention Manager

Wally Hay is the Director of Safety/Loss Prevention for Bear Creek Services LLC. Wally started his career with the Louisiana Department of Transportation & Development with the Safety Section and managed the safety programs for Northwest and Northeast Louisiana for around 1400 employees. This would include accident investigations, training & compliance for DOTD on State and Federal Regulations. His career for the Department was for 33 years.

In February 2006 Wally accepted the position as the Safety & Compliance Manager, to manage the safety program for salt water transportation and disposal wells. As the company expanded to include the services of drilling, environmental, and engineering, Wally was promoted to the Director of Safety/ Loss Prevention in 2007. Our company has the mission of keeping our employee's safe as well as, providing the public with professional, dependable service and to comply with the State and Federal Regulations.