“The energy business is a pioneering environment, and it requires new pioneers to keep our world running.”

Richard Norris (56) works at AGR, helping bring its digitisation software to energy businesses around the world. As a farmer’s son, he grew up learning about mechanics and engineering surrounded by the natural environment, which led him to pursue a degree in geology and a career in oil and gas. He’s travelled the world with work, but today lives in Yorkshire.

My father was a farm manager and my mother a schoolteacher, so I spent my childhood and formative years growing up on farms before ending up in Yorkshire just outside Scarborough. I lived across some fabulous rural settings and spent a lot of time outside enjoying the countryside and the freedom that came with it. It was during this time I developed an interest in how landscapes were formed and went on to study geology at school and then university in Leicester.

Being surrounded by farm equipment and vehicles, I already had a foundation in mechanics and knew how to maintain and run machinery. How things worked really interested me, and during my teenage years my brother and I spent a lot of time messing about with old motorbikes and cars which later evolved into a hobby of car restoration. After university, and inspired by my father’s adventures peach-picking in the United States, I went to work on a summer camp in the Catskill mountains with the intention of travelling around America as he had done. I didn’t realise at the time that I would end up working in an industry that would give me the opportunity to travel and work and see many other parts of the world!

My career in oil and gas began after a chance conversation with a university friend who was working for an oilfield service company. He shared tales of local wildlife roaming near the rig site in Africa as well as his travels around the world during time off. Oil and gas sounded interesting, and before long I found myself in Aberdeen flying out to oil rigs every couple of weeks. This was my life for three years, before I switched to an onshore position, applying my geology knowledge in the sale of drilling components to oil companies.

As my career progressed, I had the opportunity to work in Vietnam in the early ‘90s and many of the oilfield locations in Africa. My final overseas posting was to Libya for a deeply rewarding role building a sales operation from scratch and training young Libyan engineers to run field operations on their own. I thoroughly enjoyed watching their confidence and responsibilities grow. The energy business is a pioneering environment, and it requires new pioneers to keep our world running.

Today, my job with AGR is providing software to the energy industry that enables greater digitisation during well construction. The pandemic has made people and businesses adopt digital processes faster than ever before, and it has truly become embedded in everyday working life. This is the kind of vigor that will be needed in embracing the move towards cleaner energy forms. While it won’t be an overnight change, and there will remain a vital need for oil and gas in everyday life for years to come, it is energising to see how existing industry players are transforming operations and helping the UK and other countries achieve the crucial climate goal of net zero carbon emissions by 2050.