The popularity of the Paramount+ TV series, “Landman,” cast the spotlight on the energy industry and the landman profession. As Rawls College Energy Commerce & Business Economics (ENCO) Assistant Professor of Practice Kassandra McQuillan puts it, “Energy has arrived – we have our own Grey’s Anatomy!”
At the recent lunch and learn, panel moderator Nikki Kantelis, associate professor of practice for ENCO, welcomed more than 100 students in attendance, introduced special guests and panelists, and led a discussion on key points to take away from the show.
How It Started
Kantelis says despite dramatization, the show positively portrayed important aspects of the field but before highlighting those points she took the discussion back to how it all began.
Noting a special guest in the audience, she introduced Petroleum Engineering Department Chair Marshall Watson, who helped prepare the series’ TV crew, and asked him to share how he became involved with the show.
“We essentially took a crew of eight or nine people out to our oilfield technology center where they saw drilling and wells being completed, and we basically walked them through Oilfield 101,” Watson said. “What I’ll say about the show is, while I think they give the wrong impression of a landman and fixing and maintaining wells – for example, they went against better judgment in deciding to use unrealistic scenarios like the pipe wrench that created a spark and caused an explosion in one scene and the main character shutting off the battery on the tank to prevent a larger explosion in another scene – the show does do a decent job of representing the oilfield.”
The Landmen in the Room
Introduced next were panelists Nancy McCaskell and Jason Maloy, both members of the American Association of Professional Landmen (AAPL) and both highly successful landmen.
An Oklahoma native and AAPL president, McCaskell said the landman, or land professional, has changed significantly from when she began in the 1980s.
“I didn’t know about the profession until one day when my mom told me about a position she saw and thought I’d be good for – she said, ‘something with doing research out in the field,’” she laughed. “Starting out, I ran owner reports and learned a lot about wells.”
McCaskell says being a landman is one of the most fun things in the entire world.
“AAPL has a great video that explains what a landman is and how the profession has evolved and continues to expand,” she said. “It’s no longer only about oil and gas, sitting hours in a courthouse researching ownership rights,” she added. “Today, it’s more about a multichannel approach to energy including solar, wind, geothermal, and more.”
Today, McCaskell is also president of Masonboro Energy LLC, serves as an advisory member to the University of Oklahoma College of Law MLS and LLM programs in energy and natural resources, and has more than three decades of managing and leading acquisitions, divestitures, and negotiations.
Maloy, also an Oklahoma native and AAPL’s media preparedness team chair, began his landman career as an intern in 2000, but remembers clearly when it looked like graduating wasn’t going to be in his future.
“I was half-way through my fall semester when I couldn’t pay my tuition,” he recalled. “The following spring, I received one of AAPL’s Landman Scholarships which allowed me to continue school and secure an internship. My first full-time job was as a ‘land negotiator.’”
Today, Maloy is owner and operator of two oil and gas companies, Tall Cotton Energy LLC and Rising Star Energy Partners LLC, and has worked on more than $17 billion worth of acquisition and development deals while assembling and managing hundreds of thousands of prime acreage across the U.S.
He says Rawls College, only one of nine undergraduate AAPL-accredited programs, is one of the finest and most successful energy programs in the world.
How It’s Going
Toward the beginning, some scenes of the "Landman" show were recorded at AAPL headquarters. Hoping to capitalize on how popular the show might be, AAPL devised an ad hoc committee tasked with ensuring their organization is the first result when someone Google’s, “What is a landman?” This media preparedness team, chaired by Maloy, published podcasts after each episode and responded to local media requests.
“The first two minutes of the first episode is full of technicalities – for example, where is the notary while Tommy is negotiating under duress?” he joked. “So, you can imagine the kinds of questions we were getting.”
Noting this as an excellent segue, Kantelis then posed three things seen throughout the series for points of fact or fiction:
- Safety
- Negotiations
- Ethics
Safety is Everybody’s Authority
McCaskell said everybody, from engineers and geologists to landmen and well workers, has the authority to shut it down if they see something wrong.
“It’s a very dangerous business and a safety record is the most important number to a company,” she emphasized, “because that is their license to operate, and it is public record.”
Negotiations Are More Than a Contract
Maloy said negotiations are about relationships and in this line of business, a handshake is his word. McCaskell agreed and added that trustworthiness and honesty are absolute.
“One time I was working in Louisiana, and I went out to meet with a landowner in the middle of nowhere on the banks of the Red River,” she recalled. She explained that the relationship had previously been tarnished, and she knew there could be tension.
“I waited 10 minutes, watching from a distance as the man skinned squirrels under a shed. When he finished and I walked over he said, ‘You lie to me, it’s all over.’”
It took a year to fix the relationship.
Maloy said one of the things he thinks the show does well is highlighting the communication demands of a landman, from relentless phone calls to one-on-one in-person communication off site and then relaying that to the workers in the field.
“One time, I negotiated with a landowner for three to four months before we began putting the oilfield online,” he recalled. “Shortly after, on Christmas Eve, I get a call – ‘When you’re done with that, can you help me?’”
His point was, landmen are on call 24/7.
Ethics – A Code and Standards
The AAPL has a Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice for its members. The two stressed how adherence to this code and standards is important on many levels. On one level, it helps uphold the trust and honesty the profession is built on. McCaskell said she’s expelled when they prove to be untrustworthy and dishonest.
On another level, it strengthens the hiring process – for the member it provides a competitive advantage, and for the company hiring it provides assurance the employee’s conduct and business principles are sound and solid.
What the Show is Getting Right
In the end, the two agreed the "Landman" series is shining a positive spotlight on two things – McCaskell said one is the importance of understanding the rights of the landowner and Maloy said the other is the generous philanthropy throughout the industry.
…And, Cut!
As parting words of wisdom, McCaskell and Maloy reflected on their careers leaving students with answers for what to expect and what to do differently.
- Ask a million questions – there are no dumb questions
- After graduation, find a mentor and ask more questions
- Get ready to work at least 12-hour days
- Meet a lot of people
- In the beginning, some things won’t be pleasant and you’re likely to fall down – get up and learn
- Stay ambitious, but also be present and ready to help and learn
- Enjoy it – you don’t have to be uber competitive all the time
Spotlight on AAPL Philanthropy
Since 2014-2015, AAPL has awarded Rawls College ENCO students with more than $257,000 in scholarships; this academic year, they’ve awarded $37,500.
2024-2025 Landman Scholarship Recipients:
- Ben Derharoutian
- Cole Vannorsdel
- Corinne Worthington
- Jess Pope
- Kiana Firouzbakht
- Will Strachan