William B. Huthnance

Bill was born in Austin, Texas on February 2, 1934 to Caroline Branan Huthnance and Earl Thompson Huthnance. He grew up in Alexandria, Louisiana and graduated from Bolton High School in 1951. He attended Louisiana State University where he graduated in 1956 with a degree in Petroleum Engineering. During his college years at LSU, Bill was a member of Kappa Sigma Fraternity, the Geological and Mining Society, lettered in freshman football and received the Louis Gottlieb Award for the highest GPA of any freshman athlete.

On November 30, 1957, Bill married his sweetheart Renee Oubre Huthnance in Houma, Louisiana. After a move to Houston,TX, Bill and Renee created a wonderful life for themselves and their three children Nancy, Branan, and Ann. They travelled frequently as a family - whether that was to Mexico where they took excursions on cheaply built glass bottom boats or traveling the countryside in a gas-guzzling RV fondly named Winnie Windows.

Bill and Renee were members of Lakeside Country Club, Saint John Vianney Catholic Church since its inception and, more recently, Saint Cecilia’s Catholic Church. Bill was also an avid duck hunter, who over the years had hunting camps along the Texas Gulf Coast. Although he had a “tin ear”, Bill loved music and relished his role as a partner with his son in Rockefellers, a family owned music venue, from 1994 to 2002.

Professionally, Bill began his career in the oilfield with summer jobs with Union Oil Company of California and Loffland Bros Drilling Co. In 1956 he joined Union Oil as a drilling engineer in Abbeville, Louisiana, where he worked on Union’s first offshore drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico. He later worked in Houma, LA and Houston for Union Oil and then Bickham Drilling Company as a vice-president in Richmond, TX.

In 1964 he went into business as a consulting Petroleum Engineer in Houston, rendering well programing and on-site drilling services to independent oil operators. Bill designed an offshore platform workover rig which featured light-weight lifts using an operational technique he named “Bootstrap”, whereby the rig could be lifted and rigged up on an offshore platform using the rig’s own crane rather than a costly third party derrick barge. Along with Hiram Walker and Roy Cullen, he co-founded Walker-Huthnance Offshore Co. which built and operated the industry’s first offshore bootstrap platform rig. The company also built the first self-propelled, cantilevered-type jack-up rig capable of skidding off its drilling package onto an offshore platform. Walker-Huthnance grew in size to seven workover/drilling rigs, six in the US Gulf of Mexico and one drilling rig in Brazil. In 1974 the Company was sold to A.P. Moler (Maersk) in Copenhagen, Denmark.

In 1975, Bill founded Huthnance Drilling Company, whose fleet grew to nine offshore drilling rigs, mostly operating in the Gulf of Mexico. All but one jackup rig was sold to W.R. Grace & Co in 1988 and the Huthnance Division of Grace Offshore was formed to operate the fleet. Bill served as president of this division. In 1993, Grace sold its energy related companies and Huthnance International sold its remaining 300’ jackup rig, drilling on location with her drill package skidded-off onto Conoco’s Belinda platform in the South China Sea.

During his career, his companies worked for virtually every offshore oil and gas operating company active in the US Gulf of Mexico. Bill was a pioneer in the offshore drilling and service rig industry, and many of his operational techniques have become industry standards.

Bill was fondly called Dad, Papa, Uncle Bull and Billy by those he loved beyond measure.

He is predeceased by his parents Caroline and Tom Huthnance and his loving wife Renee Huthnance.

He is survived by his daughter Nancy Foytlin and her husband Al of Spring, TX; son Branan Huthnance of La Salle, TX; daughter Ann Dedmon and her husband Dean of Dyersburg, TN; and grandchildren Emily Martin and her husband David of Dallas,TX; Lucy Bertsch and her husband Nathan of Potomac, MD; Anna Huthnance of Houston, TX; Sydney Huthnance of Houston, TX; Will Dedmon of Houston, TX; Caroline Dedmon of Oxford, MS; and great-grandchildren Olivia, Josie, Peter, and James.