Dee Hursh
Mr. Hursh died of general health complications near his home of Henderson, Nevada, in the Las Vegas valley. He was survived by his wife Roxanne, two daughters, Beverly Hursh and Madeline Hursh-Alcock, and two granddaughters, Nicolle and Lauren Alcock.
Dee Hursh began his career when he broke out on drilling rigs in the oilfields of southern California around Santa Paula and Fillmore east of Ventura during the early 1950s. He worked all positions from roustabout to floor hand to derrick man, and sometimes driller.
About 1961, Dee became employed in the drilling department of Reynolds Electrical and Engineering Company on the U.S. Department of Energy's Nevada test site, northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada. This was at the beginning of America's underground nuclear weapons testing program during the cold war with Russia. In the 1960s and early 1970s, he continued work at the test site as an equipment specialist maintaining and operating wellhead blowout preventers for the University of California - Los Alamos national laboratory's post shot yard and on drilling rig operations for the laboratory while reentering underground expended nuclear weapon test zones for radioactive sample recovery. Dee assisted in the design and construction of remote controlled and shielded equipment to handle these samples.
During this same period, Dee also became an expert in disassembling, decontaminating, and servicing the then famous down hole hydraulic directional drilling motor called a Dyna-Drill. This was the precursor to all the directional drilling tools now used in current directional and horizontal drilling operations that is the key toward energy independence in America.
About 1972, Mr. Hursh was hired by the Arabian American Oil Company to work in the Abqaiq drilling toolhouse within the Drilling and Workover Services Department. His work there was also associated with servicing and maintaining blowout preventers, Dyna-Drills, rotary drilling tools, fishing tools, and a wide variety of associated equipment. He rapidly rose to foreman in supervising a large staff of Saudi Arab and American employees, all of whom had great respect for his human relations and technical skills.
The toolhouse coordinated the provision of all supplies and services required by all drilling and workover rigs, both contract and Aramco owned, both onshore and offshore. At one time the total rig count was 60, then dropped to six during the world-wide oilfield recession of the 1980s, before rebounding later.
At some point as the foreman of the Abqaiq drilling toolhouse, Mr. Hursh returned to work at the Nevada test site for about two years, but was later rehired by Aramco to do similar work at the Dhahran Drilling Toolhouse as foreman until his retirement from Saudi Aramco at age 59 in 1992.
Many Aramco drilling foremen and others will remember what a friend and expert drilling tool man that Mr. Hursh was throughout his career. He always had time to talk to an associate and fulfill their on-job needs at any time 24/7, 365 days. When a rig foreman encountered a special need in the middle of night, he would get a radio-phone patch to Dee's home where it was known that the need would be addressed.
Mr. Hursh's surviving daughter Beverly writes: "Dee was a great dad and husband and is missed. No matter what was going on in life, his wife and girls could always count on him for guidance and support. He was funny, hardworking, and a very caring person that anyone could look up to. My dad's friend Joe called him a saint, and he was".
This obituary submitted by James A. (Jim) McDonald, Aramco Onshore Drilling Liaison man, 1975 to 1993, and the University of California employee, 1960 to 1975.