Jack Christiansen is the visionary and founder of the Petroleum Technology Initiative. He has over 35 years' domestic and international experience with Texaco and ChevronTexaco, 20 years of which were devoted to the North Sea exploration, engineering and production departments in the United Kingdom. He began his career as a geophysicist, later geologist and manager of development geoscience. Working in Houston, he became manager of reservoir engineering for major projects in Southeast Asia and South America. His last two positions were as reservoir manager for an offshore gas project near Myanmar and an onshore heavy oil project in Venezuela's heavy oil belt. Jack has experience in most upstream project areas with emphasis on creating value while taking projects from exploration to commercialization.