Joseph A. Pratt – författare

Fifty years ago, in November 1947, Brown & Root helped Kerr-McGee build the first out-of-sight-land offshore platform that produced oil. The date is widely celebrated as the birth of the modern offshore industry. In the years since this historic occasion, Brown & Root has continued to pioneer in the design and construction of offshore pipelines and platforms. Along with the rest of the offshore industry, the company has helped develop technology capable of finding and producing oil in deepwater and in harsh environments around the world.This history puts a human face on the process of technological change. Using the words of many of those who took part in Brown & Root''s offshore activities, this book recounts their efforts to find practical ways to recover offshore oil. Building on lessons learned in the Gulf of Mexico before and after World War II, the company''s personnel adapted offshore technologies to conditions encountered in Venezuela, the Middle East, Alaska, and other regions before becoming one of the first engineering and construction companies to confront the challenge of North Sea development in the 1960''s.Through times of boom and bust in the oil industry, the search for effective technology had continued. The process has not always been smooth, but the results have been impressive. As we enter a new and exciting era in offshore technology, the history of the first fifty years of the industry provides a useful context for understanding current and future events.

As counsel for Pennzoil's successful effort to recover billions of dollars in damages from Texaco over the acquisition of Getty Oil Company, the Baker & Botts law firm of Houston, Texas, achieved wide public recognition in the 1980s. But among its peers in the legal and corporate worlds, Baker & Botts has for more than a century held a preeminent position, handling the legal affairs of such blue-chip clients as the Southern Pacific Railroad, Houston Lighting & Power Company, Rice University, Texas Commerce Bank, and Tenneco. In this study, Kenneth J. Lipartito and Joseph A. Pratt chronicle the history of Baker & Botts, placing particular emphasis on the firm's role in Houston's economic development.Founded in 1840, Baker & Botts literally grew up with Houston. The authors chart its evolution from a nineteenth-century regional firm that represented eastern-based corporations moving into Texas to a twentieth-century national firm with clients throughout the world. They honestly discuss the criticisms that Baker & Botts has faced as an advocate of big business. But they also identify the important impact that corporate law firms of this type have on business reorganization and government regulation. As the authors demonstrate in this case study, law firms throughout the twentieth century have helped to shape public policy in these critical areas.Always prominent in the community, and with prominent connections (former Secretary of State James A. Baker III is the great-grandson of the original Baker), the Baker & Botts law firm belongs in any history of the development of Houston and the Southwest.

Herman and George R. Brown, formidable figures in the construction industry and Texas politics, made a unique business team. Practical and decisive Herman and university-trained, soft-spoken George, a natural salesperson, combined their individual strengths, strong work ethic, and ambition to develop Brown & Root one of America's preeminent construction companies. Builders serves both as a history of their lives and as an examination of business life in mid-twentieth-century America. In addition to examining the brothers' business accomplishments, the authors address the Browns' philanthropic work, political influence, antiunionism, and longtime relationship with Lyndon Baines Johnson.

Offers a comprehensive review of the currently existing energy production and consumption technologies Offering unique perspectives from one social and one natural scientist and combining them with the view of an industry expert, this book covers definitions and ways of quantifying energy and sustainability, and examines today?s energy production and consumption technologies?paying particular attention to the environmental, historic, and regulatory aspects of each introduced energy technology. It also deals with alternative and future energy technologies, as well as examples of sustainable approaches to everyday issues of transportation, urban planning, and home construction. Introduction to Energy and Sustainability starts with a section on introductory concepts and covers such things as the history of our relationship with energy; defining and quantifying both energy and sustainability; flows and conversions of energy and matter; and the laws of thermodynamics energy production today. It examines how energy is produced and consumed in our modern world?and looks at what types of energy exist and how we use it. The book also discusses the future of energy and how we will provide and utilize our current and forthcoming sources of power as our world changes. -Balances the treatment of hard science and engineering concepts of energy and sustainability with a thorough discussion of their socioeconomic and geopolitical implications -Offers a unique perspective of one social and one natural scientist, combined with the view of an industry expert -Filled with chapters that feature practice questions and solutions -Relevant to students in energy fields and environmentalists Introduction to Energy and Sustainability is an ideal text for post-graduate level students of energy fields. It will also greatly benefit environmentalists, engineers, power engineers, and chemists in industry.

Offers a comprehensive review of the currently existing energy production and consumption technologies Offering unique perspectives from one social and one natural scientist and combining them with the view of an industry expert, this book covers definitions and ways of quantifying energy and sustainability, and examines today?s energy production and consumption technologies?paying particular attention to the environmental, historic, and regulatory aspects of each introduced energy technology. It also deals with alternative and future energy technologies, as well as examples of sustainable approaches to everyday issues of transportation, urban planning, and home construction. Introduction to Energy and Sustainability starts with a section on introductory concepts and covers such things as the history of our relationship with energy; defining and quantifying both energy and sustainability; flows and conversions of energy and matter; and the laws of thermodynamics energy production today. It examines how energy is produced and consumed in our modern world?and looks at what types of energy exist and how we use it. The book also discusses the future of energy and how we will provide and utilize our current and forthcoming sources of power as our world changes. -Balances the treatment of hard science and engineering concepts of energy and sustainability with a thorough discussion of their socioeconomic and geopolitical implications -Offers a unique perspective of one social and one natural scientist, combined with the view of an industry expert -Filled with chapters that feature practice questions and solutions -Relevant to students in energy fields and environmentalists Introduction to Energy and Sustainability is an ideal text for post-graduate level students of energy fields. It will also greatly benefit environmentalists, engineers, power engineers, and chemists in industry.