Leadership Team
Susan Howes, PHR, PE
President
C. Susan Howes is President at Subsurface Consultants & Associates LLC, and she served as SCA Vice President of Engineering from 2016 to 2022. Howes’ prior experience includes roles of increasing responsibility at Anadarko and Chevron in reservoir engineering, business development, corporate engineering, HR, organizational capability and reservoir management. Howes is recognized an industry leader in petro-technical talent attraction, development and retention. She has coauthored numerous papers and articles on the topics of ethics, uncertainty management, risk management, and talent management. Howes currently serves on the Colorado School of Mines Petroleum Engineering Department Program Advisory Board, chairs the US Advisory Council for the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) and chairs the SPE Management Technical Section. Howes received the SPE DeGolyer Distinguished Service Medal, is an Honorary Member of SPE, and served as a SPE Distinguished Lecturer for 2019-20. Howes holds a BS degree in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Texas.
Mary Atchison
Vice President of Training Operations
Mary Atchison became Vice President of Training Operations for SCA in September 2012. Prior to joining the company in 2009 as Training Services Business Development Manager, Mary spent over 10 years providing total turnkey training packages worldwide for the oil and gas industry. She is currently responsible for the overall management of SCA’s training services department which provides upstream geoscience and engineering training to clients around the world. Mary received her BA in Marketing from Sam Houston State University.1979.
Matt Nowak
Director of Business Development
Matthew Nowak has been working in the oil and gas industry since 2000. He works directly with senior-level professionals at major international oil companies, as well as independent producers. He joined SCA in 2006 as a Business Development Manager and currently serves as one of the Directors of Business Development. In this role he is responsible for overseeing sales and recruiting efforts and promoting SCA’s internal Projects & Studies teams. Matthew received his Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing from Texas A&M University.
Tim Riepe
Director of Business Development
Tim Riepe joined SCA in 2008 where he currently serves as Business Development Director. In this capacity he manages the recruiting and sales efforts around SCA’s core competencies. He maintains professional relationships with a large network of geological and engineering Independent Consultants, and promotes SCA’s Consulting services, internal Projects & Studies team, Direct Hire services and training courses SCA offers. Tim earned his Business degree from Texas Lutheran University.
Matthew Miller
Accounting Manager
Matt joined SCA in 2012 as an Upstream Recruiter and is currently serving as Accounting Manager having transitioned into that role in 2015. In that capacity, he is responsible for managing SCA’s accounting duties including but not limited to oversight of accounts receivable and accounts payable, employee payroll and independent contractor payments, and filing quarterly and annual state and federal documents. In addition to his accounting responsibilities, Matt is involved in marketing efforts including the creation of marketing materials using Adobe InDesign. Matt received a BBA in Finance from Baylor University in 2011 where he was also a member of Pi Kappa Phi Fraternity, Beta Gamma Sigma, and National Society of Collegiate Scholars.
Hal Miller
Chairman of the Board
Hal Miller is the Chairman of Subsurface Consultants & Associates, LLC’s Board of Directors after serving as President for 10 years. During that time, he was responsible for managing SCA’s global operations and guiding the company’s strategic direction. Prior to joining SCA in 2004 as Vice President of Operations, Hal spent a total of 26 years working at Conoco and ConocoPhillips. He held a variety of positions including operations, exploration, and human resource management at the business unit level, and corporate level skills management for the geoscience and reservoir engineering disciplines. Hal received his undergraduate degree in 1974 from Williams College in Massachusetts and his M.S. in Geology in 1977 from the University of Colorado, where he serves on the Department of Geosciences Advisory Board.
Daniel J. Tearpock
Founder
n Memoriam (1948-2014): Founder
Daniel John Tearpock was the founder and Chairman Emeritus of Subsurface Consultants & Associates, LLC (SCA). As a working geoscientist, Mr. Tearpock generated numerous exploration and exploitation prospects, either as the sole generator or as part of an organized multidisciplinary team. He co-authored three textbooks, Applied Subsurface Geological Mapping (1991) ©, Quick Look Techniques for Prospect Evaluations (1994) © and Applied Subsurface Geological Mapping with Structural Methods (2003) ©. In addition to his three books, Dan authored or coauthored numerous technical articles. He was a recipient of the AAPG Division of Professional Affairs 2012 Heritage Award and the AAPG 2013 Honorary Member Award. Mr. Tearpock was a finalist in 1996 and 1998 for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year program and in 1998 received the Distinguished Service Award from Bloomsburg University, Bloomsburg, PA from which he received his Bachelors degree in Geology.
Mr. Tearpock was a member of numerous associations including the AAPG, SPE, SIPES, SEG, GSA, HGS, EAGE, NOGS, LGS, IPA, SEAPEX, and PESGB. He was the President of the AAPG’s Division of Professional Affairs (10-11). He was a founding member and Vice-Chairman (09-11) of the intersociety “Joint Committee on Reserves Evaluator Training” (JCORET).
Please click here to visit Mr. Tearpock’s memorial website.