Meet the Board of Directors
Stephen Trauber
Stephen Trauber
Stephen Trauber recently retired from Citi where he served as Vice Chairman and Global Co-Head of Natural Resources and Clean Energy Transition and served on the senior executive and operating committee of the global investment and corporate bank. While at Citi, Mr. Trauber began and built Citi’s very successful Clean Energy Transition business. Prior to Citi, Mr. Trauber worked at UBS Investment Bank from 2003–2010 as Vice Chairman and Global Head of Energy. Mr. Trauber began his career with Credit Suisse (1988–1995) and subsequently managed Morgan Stanley’s Energy Group in Houston (1995–2003).
Mr. Trauber has served as financial advisor on over $700 billion of Global Energy and Clean Energy Transition transactions, which include many of the most significant M&A and financing transactions throughout all of the energy subsectors. These transactions represent many of the energy industry’s largest and most transformative transactions. Additionally, Mr. Trauber has worked with and served as lead financier for many of the industry’s IPOs as well as both equity and debt capital markets transactions in the past 34 years.
Since retiring Mr. Trauber has joined and currently serves on several corporate Boards of Directors including Nabors Energy Transition Corp II where he serves as Audit Chair, NXTClean Fuels and New Asean Energy. He also serves as an Advisory Director for Aon, Last Energy, Third Gear Investments and a Senior Advisor for McKinsey & Co.
Mr. Trauber currently serves as Chairman of the Memorial Hermann Hospital Foundation, on the Board of Directors for Theater Under the Stars, Performing Arts Houston and its Foundation and is a former Chairman of both Theater Under the Stars and Performing Arts Houston. He is also an Overseer of the Jones Business School at Rice University. Mr. Trauber has served on the Board of Directors for Greater Houston Partnership, the Houston Children’s Museum, the Houston Zoo and the Mayor’s Economic Development Task Force for the City of Houston. Steve was awarded the first Annual Congressman Barbara Jordan Award for Community Service and he and his wife are the recipients of the 2003 “I Have a Dream” award for their support of local children’s charities and of children’s education. Mr. Trauber and his wife have chaired many fundraisers and capital campaigns for local charities raising nearly $60 million dollars.
Mr. Trauber received his BA in Economics and Managerial Studies from Rice University. He was an Austin Scholar and earned his MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University. He is married to Leticia and has four children and four grandchildren.
Board Member
Richard Degner
Richard Degner
Richard A. Degner is the founder and CEO of Geophysical Technology Inc., an oil field technology firm focused on next generation geophysical technology development. Previously, Mr. Degner was the founder, Chairman, and CEO of Global Geophysical Services, Inc., headquartered in Houston, Texas. Mr. Degner built Global from inception and served as the Chairman, CEO and President from June 2003 to October 2012.
Prior to founding Global Geophysical Services, Mr. Degner spent 3½ years building PGS Onshore around several hundred of the best people in the seismic business. Under Mr. Degner’s leadership, PGS developed an excellent reputation as an innovative and high quality provider of land and TZ geophysical services.
Prior to PGS, Mr. Degner had an accomplished 16-year career with Western Geophysical, where he joined in 1984 after earning degrees in both Geophysical and Geological Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines. Since managing Western Geophysical’s first land 3D seismic project in Latin America in 1985, Mr. Degner designed and/or executed hundreds of land and transition zone 3D projects worldwide. He became the worldwide Land Product Line Leader for Western’s industry leading land and TZ seismic operation. He also served as Vice President of Western Hemisphere Operations. As a leader of the largest geophysical operator worldwide, Mr. Degner established a vast experience base and good reputation from oil and gas clientele throughout the world.
Mr. Degner graduated from Rice University’s Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business with a Master’s Degree in Business Administration. He is an active member in the Society of Exploration Geophysics, the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, and served as a board member of the International Association of Geophysical Contractors. Mr. Degner has served on Stanford University’s “Earth Science Advisory Board”, and at the Colorado School of Mines’ “Geophysical Advisory Board”. He is an active member of Gerson Lerhman’s council of Energy Advisors. Mr. Degner was the 2012 regional award winner of the Ernst and Young “Entrepreneur of the Year” program for oil field technology.
CEO & President
Hank Hamilton
Hank Hamilton
Mr. Hamilton resides in Houston, Texas and is currently the Chairman of TGS-NOPEC Geophysical Company ASA (TGS), a $2.8 billion publicly traded company specializing in providing geoscientific data and services to the oil & gas exploration and production industry. Previously he served as Chief Executive Officer of TGS from 1995 through June of 2009, where he developed the company from a small, privately held niche player in the Gulf of Mexico market to the recognized global leader in multi-client geophysical and geological data products. After earning a bachelor’s degree in physics at the University of North Carolina, Hank began his career as a geophysicist with Shell Offshore (1981-1987), where he gained valuable experience in developing, utilizing and managing seismic acquisition, processing and interpretation techniques. During these years he attended Tulane University’s AB Freeman School of Business at nights, earning 30 course hours of MBA credit. In 1987 he moved to Schlumberger (1987-1995) where he successfully commercialized the business model for multi-client 3D surveys, managed the growth of the company’s marine acquisition business in Europe by expanding the fleet of operated vessels from 6 to seventeen over a two-year period, and ultimately held the position of Vice President and General Manager for all geophysical product lines in North and South America. Mr. Hamilton served on the Board of Directors for the International Association of Geophysical Contractors (IAGC) from 1993-2011 and currently serves on the boards of Odfjell Drilling, the Society of Exploration Geophysics (SEG) Foundation, and the University of North Carolina Arts & Sciences Foundation. He is also Chairman of the board of Defy Ventures, a privately funded New York City based non-profit organization that provides carefully selected, ambitious men and women who have criminal histories with life-changing entrepreneurship, leadership, and career opportunities, and he volunteers extensively at the Prison Entrepreneurship Program in Texas.