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Steve Walkinshaw 

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MANAGEMENT

HONESTY.  INTEGRITY.  EXPERIENCE.

Steve Walkinshaw is the President and owner of Vision Exploration.  Steve began his career in the oil business in 1980, working as an intern at Forest Oil Corp., where he generated his first successful oil & gas prospect (see John Marble's testimonial).  He was then hired full-time by Dudley Hughes (Hughes Eastern Corp.) in 1981, serving as Staff (and later District) Geologist, a position he held until 1989.  In 1989 Steve founded and managed Cougar Exploration, a successful business unit of Paramount Petroleum, until it was acquired by Nuevo Energy in 1992.  Steve worked as a staff geologist with Nuevo until 1996, when he left Nuevo and was subsequently asked by Dudley Hughes to return as Exploration Manager of Hughes-Rawls, International (HRI).  Steve was promoted to Executive Vice-President of HRI in 1999.

In 2000, Steve left HRI to form Vision Exploration.  Since its inception, Vision Exploration has quietly grown to become the most active non-operating independent oil & gas company in the state.  Steve is a Registered Professional Geologist in the states of Mississippi and Louisiana, a 38-year member of AAPG, a DPA Certified Petroleum Geologist, and a member of SAGE and AIPG.  In addition to his past service as Secretary, Treasurer and President, Steve remains active in the Mississippi Geological Society, serving as Webmaster (having built and maintained the Society's website) since 2002.  Steve is also a long-standing member and has served as Chairman of the Mississippi State Mapping Advisory Committee (SMAC) since 2017.  The Committee serves to annually review and approve the ongoing surface mapping efforts of the Mississippi DEQ Office of Geology.  For further information, please see Steve's LinkedIn profile.  A comprehensive Curriculum vitae and two-page List of References is available upon request.

Steve was the first geologist in Mississippi to receive Landmark Advanced Seisworks training in 1992.  Since that time he has become cross-disciplined in 3D seismic interpretation, able to interpret data using any of the modern software platforms.  Steve is recognized by leading seismic data brokers like SEI and Seitel as a bona fide geophysical consultant and owns a powerful IHS Kingdom software suite that includes the 2D3D Pak, VuPak, GeoSyn, and Rock Solid Attributes (RSA) modules.  This enables Steve to apply advanced analysis to his interpretation of 2D and 3D data cube volumes.  Steve also owns a full license to CGG Jason's PowerBench petrophysical software and has been conducting advanced petrophysical analysis for over 38 years.

In 2002, Steve was honored by the New Orleans Geological Society (NOGS) as the recipient of the Society's Best Paper Award for 2001. Steve's presentation was entitled "Magma, Salt and the Chicxulub Impact: Intriguing Implications for the End of the Cretaceous in the Mississippi Embayment".

In 2008, the Mississippi DEQ and the Mississippi Children's Museum asked Steve Walkinshaw to create the Museum's first geological PowerPoint presentation, focused on the origin and history of the Jackson Dome.  Hundreds of Mississippi's schoolchildren viewed the presentation, which received wide acclaim and continues to be utilized by both the DEQ and the Museum.  What the schoolchildren could not have known was that, in the course of developing the presentation, Steve researched the seminal early papers covering the Jackson Dome (published in the 1930's) and advised the DEQ of recommended revisions to its own geological understanding of the Dome, its genesis, and the economically significant Gas Rock reservoir of the Jackson Gas Field atop the Dome.  This in turn led to Steve's 2018 publication of “The Jackson Gas Rock, a Unique Upper Cretaceous (Selma Chalk) Lithofacies, Mississippi”, which was recently awarded the 2018 First Place Thomas A. Philpott Excellence of Presentation Award by the Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies (GCAGS).

On May 16, 2012, Steve Walkinshaw served as Presenter for the Lower Smackover Brown Dense Unconventional Oil Trend at Hart Energy's Third Annual DUO (Developing Unconventional Oil) Conference, held in Denver, Colorado.  Since the DUO Conference, Steve has reprised the presentation (in a greatly expanded format) before many regional Geological Societies, including the Shreveport Geological Society (SGS), the Lafayette Geological Society (LGS), the New Orleans Geological Society (NOGS), and the Mississippi Geological Society (MGS); as well as the Mississippi Association of Petroleum Landmen (MAPL), and the Emerging Shale Plays USA 2013 and 2014 Conferences, held in Houston, Texas.

Steve's geologic research focusing on the Paleozoic strata of the western Black Warrior Basin (and the Jackson Dome) are featured prominently in the recently released book, The Geology of Mississippi (Thompson/Dockery).  A wildcat well drilled to test his Coldwater River Prospect encountered the thickest interval of karsted Cambro-Ordovician carbonates in the Basin.

In October 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic (and prior to the distribution of any vaccines), Steve Walkinshaw presented, in person, “The Lower Smackover Brown Dense Limestone: Its Potential as a Hybrid Unconventional Resource Play” at the Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies (GCAGS; aka GeoGulf) Convention in Lafayette, Louisiana. This presentation was subsequently awarded the 2020 Second Place Thomas A. Philpott Excellence of Presentation Award by GCAGS.  It should be noted that the October 2020 GeoGulf Convention was the only "in-person" geoscience convention held in 2020 in North America, a tribute to the tenacity and courage of LGS's James Willis and those who physically presented at and/or attended the Convention (whose organizers did a terrific job of minimizing attendees' risks to COVID-19 exposure).

In April 2022, Steve Walkinshaw presented The Geology of the Deeply Carbon Negative Louisiana Green Fuels CCS Project, Caldwell Parish, Louisiana” to the Shreveport Geological Society at its Noon Meeting in Shreveport, Louisiana.  This comprehensive presentation of the Louisiana Green Fuels CCS Project drew a large audience, both in person and online (via Zoom), and showcased Steve's ongoing work as Strategic Biofuels' Vice President - Geoscience of that $2.5 billion CCS project.

Steve has many oil and gas discoveries and successful field redevelopment projects to his credit, primarily in South and East Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.


Joe Gianola provides land management support to Vision on an as-needed contractual basis.  In his 48-year career as an AAPL Certified Professional Landman, Joe has been involved in every aspect of land and legal work within the oil and gas industry. He has proven invaluable in his ability to negotiate complex lease and farmout agreements. But - just as importantly - Joe has an excellent demeanor and is both well liked and well known by his peers in the industry. He is an integral part of the Vision team, one that provides total prospect management.

Joe served as President of the Mississippi Association of Petroleum Landmen (MAPL) from 1991-1992, 2004-2005, and 2005-2006.  In 2007 Joe received MAPL's Landman of the Year Award for his distinguished service. 


Candy Goolsby also provides CAD support to Vision on an as-needed contractual basis. Candy's career in oil and gas drafting began in 1978, with Michigan-Wisconsin Oil Company. She moved from pen and ink drafting to CAD in 1990, and has since become an expert in Corel Draw. Candy's work ethic and the excellent quality of her drafting, artistry, and creative design are well known within the oil & gas industry.


Vision Exploration has the capability to manage every facet of oil and gas exploration (and development) in-house; we generate, evaluate, lease, market, and oversee the drilling of each prospect. All geological, geophysical, legal, and CAD/HTML work is performed internally (including the design, construction, and maintenance of this website).


The staff of Vision Exploration enjoys an enviable reputation within the industry. Our investors and industry partners have the confidence of knowing that Vision Exploration will manage its business and the Exploration Program with only the highest ideals of honesty and integrity.