Dutch American Heritage Foundation

Gene van Dyke Dutch American Heritage Award

2001 Recipient

Gene Van Dyke

Founder, Owner & President
Vanco Energy Company

Gene Van Dyke personifies the entrepreneurial spirit that has taken the oil industry into new, international frontiers in the last thirty years. With vision and foresight, he has led his oil and gas company beyond the predictable scene of US exploration, to the North Sea during its pioneering days of the early 1970's, and to the deep water regions offshore Africa today.

A native of Illinois, Gene grew up during the Depression, his father a teacher and his mother a bookkeeper and homemaker. At an early age, he was fascinated with the oil business, and determined to make his future there. After one year in the Air Force at the end of WWII, and a semester at the University of Illinois, Gene hitchhiked to Oklahoma, working a summer for Kerr McGee before entering the University of Oklahoma. After receiving his degree in Geological Engineering in 1950, Gene moved to Wichita Falls, Texas, where he briefly worked for Independent S.D. Johnson before striking out on his own.

Like every other wildcatter of his day, Gene learned the oil business the hard way - through deal making and risk taking, enjoying significant success and suffering the losses. At the end of over twenty years of exploring Texas and Louisiana, Gene realized his appetite for huge discoveries would only be satisfied by going overseas. In 1973, he embarked on finding oil in the frontier of the North Sea. While concentrating on the Dutch and UK sectors, his success over the next twenty-five years would come from numerous discoveries offshore Holland.

A sustaining belief in the future of offshore exploration led Gene to the new frontier of deepwater West Africa in 1996. In four short years, his company, Vanco Energy Company, has acquired licenses in seven countries, totaling more than 26 million acres, to become the leading deepwater acreage holder offshore West Africa. With drilling to begin in 2002 and 2003, Vanco is expected to become one of the largest independent oil and gas companies.

Gene lives with his wife, Astrid, in Houston, Texas, close to his four children, two adopted children and ten grandchildren. In 2000, the Houston Geological Society honored him as a "Living Legend in Wildcatting."