Senior Oil & Gas Engineer

Engineer.
Leader.
Storyteller.

Twenty-five years of turning pressure into progress — across rigs, boardrooms, and every challenge that falls in between. Rooted in two cultures. Driven by one standard: excellence.

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25+Years in Industry
4Continents Worked
∞Problems Solved
Ethan Castillo at an oil refinery at golden hour
25Years
Expert
Senior Engineer
Ethan Castillo, P.E.
Who I Am

Two worlds.
One perspective.

I grew up navigating two cultures — the pragmatic, systems-oriented mindset of the American Midwest and the warmth, resilience, and family-first values of my Mexican heritage. Both shaped not just who I am, but how I engineer. I build things that last. I lead teams that trust each other.

Now in my early 50s, I carry that dual lens into every well site, every design review, and every mentorship conversation. Experience taught me the formulas. Heritage taught me the wisdom. The intersection of those two things is where I do my best work.

I’m a licensed Professional Engineer with a career spanning upstream exploration, midstream operations, and energy transition consulting — working alongside crews in West Texas, operations teams in the North Sea, and executive stakeholders across three continents.

“My grandfather crossed a border with nothing but a work ethic and a sense of dignity. My father built a career with a slide rule and an open mind. I carry both into the field every single day.”
— Ethan Castillo
American Roots
Mexican Heritage
The Journey

25 years of
field-tested lessons.

No career in oil and gas goes in a straight line. Mine certainly didn’t. Each chapter brought a new set of pressures — literal and figurative — and taught me something irreplaceable about engineering, leadership, and people.

01
Early Career · Late 1990s
Learning the Language of the Field

I started as a junior reservoir engineer — fresh degree, boundless confidence, and a humbling first well that reminded me how much I still didn’t know. The field taught me what textbooks couldn’t: how to read a crew, earn trust before giving orders, and stay calm when a plan falls apart at 2 AM.

02
Mid-Career · 2000s
Complexity as a Teacher

The 2000s brought scale — larger projects, tighter margins, and geopolitical complexity that no simulation can fully model. I led multi-disciplinary teams through volatile production environments, translating technical risk into language that operations, finance, and safety teams could act on.

03
Pivotal Years · 2010s
Navigating Market Disruption

The commodity crashes of the 2010s were brutal. My focus shifted to doing more with less — optimizing legacy assets, reducing non-productive time, and keeping morale intact when uncertainty was the only constant. Crisis management became a core competency, not a résumé line.

04
Senior Leadership · 2020s
Engineering at the Intersection

Today’s energy landscape demands engineers who speak the language of transition without abandoning the discipline of fundamentals. I work at that intersection — applying decades of technical rigor to an industry evolving faster than at any point in my career. The challenges are different. The craft remains the same.

Oil pump jacks silhouetted against a dramatic amber sunset
What I Stand For

Leadership built
from the ground up.

Over 25 years, my philosophy has been distilled not from business books but from real decisions under real pressure. I believe great engineering and great leadership are the same skill — both require clarity, accountability, and the humility to know what you don’t know.

My Core Philosophy

“The best engineers I’ve known didn’t just solve problems — they changed the way people thought about them. That’s what I try to do, every single day.”

People First, Always

The safest, most efficient operations I’ve been part of shared one quality: everyone felt heard. Culture is the ultimate engineering constraint — ignore it, and everything else fails downstream.

Clarity Over Complexity

My role — whether as a contributor or lead — is to cut to what matters: the problem, the risk, the decision. Simple enough to act on. Clear enough to align a room of very different minds.

Accountability Without Ego

Mistakes happen. What you do after them defines your character and your career. Own it, fix it, learn from it, and move forward without drama. A standard I’ve held for 25 years.

Data-Driven, Gut-Informed

I trust models and I trust experience — in that order and sometimes simultaneously. Twenty-five years in the field teaches you when the numbers tell the full story and when they don’t.

Global Mind, Local Respect

Having worked across cultures and geographies, I’ve learned the best solutions are almost never the same from one place to the next. I adapt to context. I earn my place on a team rather than assume it.

Mentorship as a Discipline

I actively mentor early-career professionals — particularly those from underrepresented backgrounds — because the field is stronger when more voices are at the table. That debt is real, and I take it seriously.

Let’s Talk

Ready to build something
worth building?

Whether you’re looking for a technical collaborator, an experienced advisor, or simply want to exchange ideas — I’m always open to meaningful professional conversations.

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