On July 7, a young, retired oil and gas industry executive started his first day as chief business officer for Branson-based Kanakuk Kamps. The 45-year-old John Jensen traded the $2 billion operating budget he managed as an executive vice president at Houston, Texas-based EP Energy for a budget under $20 million with the 88-year-old Christian camp outfit. Jensen took a leap of faith when he left his 20-year industry career, but he said the move is already paying dividends – in the lives of youth.
Knowing Kanakuk “After spending seven years up in Calgary with Conoco, we came back to the United States and the Bible Belt. My daughters were in junior high school. I asked my pastor in Houston, I said, ‘I’m looking for a good place to take my family – a family camp in the summer. Do you have one you’d recommend?’ He talked about a few camps, but then said, ‘If you want to go to the best one, go to Branson.’ … That’s how we got introduced. I showed up in June of 2008 with my two daughters and my bride. I loved its family camp experience. I got to know Doug Goodwin, the chief operating officer here at Kanakuk Ministries, and we just became fans of what they were doing.”
Opportunity Knocks “To me, it was a God thing. … My wife and I had been pouring our hearts into kids through family ministry for over a decade through various churches, and we had talked about how neat it would be to someday do that full time. Last fall, we started praying and thinking about me leaving the energy industry. We made the decision in early December that I would retire and start looking this summer. A week later, Doug called and said, ‘I have this position at Kanakuk I’d love to talk to you about.’ … It has nothing to do with EP Energy. … I worked a lot of long hours. I had a fairly long commute in Houston – more than an hour each way. And I traveled a lot. We were empty nesters. And beyond that, we loved serving kids together.”
EP Energy “My responsibility was for the day-to-day operations of everything going on in the field. EP Energy is an independent oil and gas company. It drills oil and gas wells across the United States. … I oversaw drilling completion, facilities construction, day-to-day operations in the field, as well as supply chain and management, and health, safety, environment and regulatory organization. All in all, I had over 500 employees and over 100 independent contractors working for me every day. We’d execute around $250,000 per hour of capital and operating (expense). My budget was over $2 billion per year. It was a big company with a lot of money being spent and a lot of focus on safe and efficient operations.”
Keystone XL Debate “My belief is that one of the fundamental things that has driven our economy is access to low-cost, reliable energy sources – oil and natural gas, but also things I haven’t been directly involved with like coal. … Some of the recent technologies around horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracture stimulation have certainly opened up to new resources that we didn’t anticipate. Specifically, with the Keystone [XL] pipeline, the interesting thing to me in the debate is what I don’t see: What are the other alternatives? The reality is that Canada is developing its oil sands resources. It’s taking those to market. What we know from history is that pipelines are the safest way to transport hydrocarbons. They are secure. They don’t require a lot of exposure to personnel, loading and unloading like you have with rail cars and truck cars. The delays in the Keystone pipeline are putting a tremendous burden on the railroad infrastructure in Canada and the United States. It’s less safe. That’s not to say it isn’t safe, but it’s less safe. I’m an advocate for determining the right, environmentally sensitive way to put the pipeline route in, and I think it matters because it gives you safe, reliable hydrocarbons from a safe source called Canada, as opposed to some other countries.”
Work at Hand “In many ways, there are similarities. You have to have the right structures in place and alignment with what we’re trying to accomplish. You need to make sure that you are efficient with the resources you have. In some ways, there are some unique challenges here, particularly with the logistics of managing all the kids and the college counselors that come here every year. We’ll (connect with) 15,000 kids this year and over 1,000 counselors. … The scale is different. I always say we are working toward treasures in heaven instead of here on earth, but the overall budget for the ministry is between $15 [million] and $20 million per year, largely driven by program fees from campers, as well as donations we get from our great ministry partners. I view my role in the business office as largely enabling those on the front lines who are doing the ministry and interfacing with the campers.”
This installment of Springfield Business Journal’s Architects & Engineers Project Report showcases 26 endeavors by area design and engineering professionals.
