Renee
Technical Manager
Cementing
Caldwell, Texas

I went to school at the University of Texas in Austin. My degree is in petroleum engineering so, obviously, when I came out of school, I was looking for a job in the oil field. 

I liked the idea of working for a service company and the idea of working for Halliburton. I liked the training that the Company offered, as well as having the opportunity to work with customers. I also liked that I would have the opportunity to work with a crew, go to oilfield locations, go to the well site, and travel around doing something different every day.

The training program is very extensive. It takes about a year to complete and it's a combination of field operations training, equipment training, and working in the field.
There's also extensive classroom training, so you learn the technical side as well as the operations side in the first year.

The training and development doesn't stop there. Over the years, I've had the opportunity to attend multiple technical schools. I've also taken management and business leadership development courses.

As soon as you're done with training, generally speaking, you're the primary technical support for the Company on location. There's always help a phone call away, but, a lot of the time, you're the only one, the sole person on location, making the decisions.

For me, it was very exciting to know I had the knowledge and skills to make multimillion-dollar decisions or to help our customers make those decisions.

I always felt that, when I was working in the field with the crews, I was working with a family. It's very close-knit. Everybody looks out for everybody else. There's definitely a sense of camaraderie in the field. 

What has surprised me the most about my career with Halliburton is how quickly I've been able to advance with the Company. Coming out of school, I really didn't have a good concept of how fast I would move up or how my career would advance or even where I wanted to be five years down the road. 

Managers are very good about sitting down and talking about what next step you want to take in your career. Halliburton really focuses on its people and on developing its people, especially the young engineers. The opportunities with Halliburton are limitless.