LEADING DRONE INSPECTION COMPANY ADDS TWO ENERGY INDUSTRY TITANS TO ITS BOARD OF DIRECTORS

  Houston, TX - 05/07/2019 (PRESS RELEASE JET)

AviSight, the leader in unmanned industrial inspection and advanced data solutions, announces two additions to their Board of Directors who cumulatively have over 60 years of experience in innovation, leadership, and success across the Oil and Gas industries.

Joining the AviSight Board of Directors are:

• Gary L. Thomas, former President & CEO of EOG Resources, Inc.
• Marvin E. Odum, former Chairman and CEO of Shell Oil Company

“To have just one of these titans join our board would have been an amazing honor.  To have both of them join really sends a signal to the industry about what AviSight is accomplishing in the market, and what we will accomplish in the very near future.” said J.B. Bernstein AviSight CEO and Chairman.  “I know I speak for everyone at AviSight when I say we are honored and proud to welcome them.”

Gary L. Thomas has been an innovative and trendsetting leader in the gas industry for quite some time.  As the President of EOG Resources, Inc. (NYSE: EOG), an oil and natural gas exploration and production company, he continually led his organization and the industry, until Dec. 31, 2018, when he retired.

Originally joining the predecessor of EOG in 1978, Mr. Thomas held positions as the COO, Senior Executive Vice President of Operations and Executive Vice President, North America Operations.  Mr. Thomas brings over 30 years in pioneering oil and gas engineering, development and executive leadership in the industry. 

He sits on the board of Nine Energy Service, is a Member of Texas Independent Producers & Royalty Owners Association, and a Member of Society of Petroleum Engineers, Inc.  

“UAS application is proving to be a fast, low cost method of infrastructure inspection and surveillance. With the addition of Artificial Intelligence to the drone platform, future progress and applications have the potential to expand rapidly,” said Thomas.

Thomas holds a Petroleum Engineering degree from The University of Texas at Austin and a master’s degree in Engineering Management from The University of Tulsa.

Marvin E. Odum is a proven global chief executive and transformational energy industry leader.  Over his 34 years with Royal Dutch Shell (London: RDSA) Odum rose to become a key member of Shell’s Executive Committee that set Royal Dutch Shell’s global strategy; capital allocation; mergers and acquisitions; succession and diversity planning; safety, security and environmental performance; investor engagement; geopolitical risk assessment and corporate brand reputation.

As Chairman and CEO of Shell Oil Company from 2008-2016, he grew the capital-employed value of the Americas upstream business from $34 billion to $60 billion; reduced structural costs by $1.2 billion (~25%) over a 12- month period; and built the company’s unconventional shale business from zero to $20 billion in assets with 10 billion barrels of oil equivalent of current and future production opportunity.

Post-retirement from Shell, Odum answered the Mayor of Houston’s call to lead the city’s multi-billion-dollar recovery from Hurricane Harvey.  Accepting no salary for over 14 months of full-time work, while addressing the immediate problems of safety, food, and housing, he secured disaster relief funds and built the city’s capacity to manage as much as $6 billion in recovery funding over the next 4 to 6 years.

“AviSight has already developed an exceptional and differential set of capabilities in their market and it is my expectation is that they will continue to set the standard for the industry."  Said Odum.
Odum earned an MBA from the University of Houston, and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Texas.  
 

Put simply, when compared to the historically manual inspection methods for critical infrastructure, AviSight finds more faults before they fail. This allows their clients to immediately start shifting reactive maintenance to preventive maintenance, yielding significant cost savings.  Most important, AviSight unmanned data collection work flows increase safety in industrial inspection exponentially.  

AviSight operates BVLOS (Beyond Visual Line Of Sight) from our proprietary C3UBE™ employing our Live Look Fault Vision™ which allows remote data viewing and the application of AI fault detection in near-real-time.  
 

About AviSight 
Founded in 2015, AviSight was formed by a group of the key US Air Force pilots and engineers who helped usher unmanned aviation into the military.  A Nevada Corporation based in Las Vegas, they provide unmanned industrial inspection services and advanced data solutions to clients that own and manage critical infrastructure worldwide. AviSight is a NODE of the FAA UAV test site in Nevada (NIAS) and is a recognized specialist for ABS. AviSight currently services clients in the Oil, Gas, Power, Transportation, and Telecommunications sectors. More information can be accessed at www.AviSight.com.