DEPARTMENTS • PERSPECTIVES
Rob Holbrook,
Rapad Drilling:
Relationships, open-mindedness
key to long career
in oil and gas
BY STEPHEN WHITFIELD, SENIOR EDITOR
If Rob Holbrook, VP at Rapad Drilling, were
to list the key factors behind his three-
decade career in oil and gas, curiosity
would probably be at the top.

He loved math and science growing up
and wanted to be an engineer, but he had
no connection to the oil and gas industry
and never thought of it as a viable career. It
wasn’t until he graduated from high school
in 1988 and took on summer jobs working
for an operator on the Gulf Coast that he
truly developed an interest in the industry.

Those summer jobs kick-started his
love for the oilfield and a curiosity about
what an oilfield life and career would be
like. This curiosity led him to a petroleum
engineering degree, followed by a full-
time job roughnecking on land rigs. That
job then led him to realize how much he
needed to learn about how rigs operate,
so he took on another job, and another,
and another. Now, Mr Holbrook could not
imagine being anywhere else.

“The ups and downs are a part of life here,
of course, but no matter what some people
say, this industry isn’t going anywhere any-
time soon,” he said. “If you can work hard,
be open minded, think outside the box and
learn to be an asset wherever you end up,
you will make it in this industry.”
Mr Holbrook grew up on a dairy farm
in Magee, Miss., hunting and fishing and
playing football and baseball. Although
he enrolled in Mississippi College, a small
institution 50 miles from his hometown,
in 1988 on a baseball scholarship, he
had his sights on becoming an engineer.

Eventually he transferred to Mississippi
50 State University and began a double major
in petroleum and chemical engineering.

Around the same time, he took on a
summer job at UnoCal (now a subsidiary of
Chevron), working in Southern Louisiana
and in Houston. He came to love life in the
field – it reminded him of his time on the
farm. So, heading into his senior year, he
decided to drop the double major and focus
just on petroleum engineering. “I realized
that I would need to be one or the other,
and the extra degree wasn’t going to help
me much,” he said.

Upon graduation in spring 1993, Mr
Holbrook had a few job offers lined up,
but he chose to work for Chelsey Pruet
Drilling, a drilling contractor based out of
Jackson. It was a local company, with its
headquarters just about an hour north of
his hometown, and he liked that it was
a “strong, family-owned company with a
great reputation.”
The company initially sent Mr Holbrook
to the field, wanting him work the first
year as a roughneck on a land rig before
coming into the office. Having grown up
on a farm, he figured he would like work-
ing outdoors on the rig, and as it turned
out, he loved the job.

After that first year, he asked to stay in
the field and spent another year working
motors and derricks, then two more years
as a driller and a toolpusher: “One year
turned into four, and I loved every minute
of it,” he said.

“If you can work hard, be
open minded, think outside
the box and learn to be an
asset wherever you end
up, you will make it in this
industry.” - Rob Holbrook
In 1997, Chelsey Pruet Drilling sold its
rigs to Nabors Industries, and Mr Holbrook
began working for Nabors as Drilling
Superintendent for the Mississippi/
Alabama region.

In 2001, the Pruet family formed a new
company, Rapad Drilling, reviving the
name of a defunct company the family
had owned in the early 1980s. Mr Holbrook
joined Rapad the same year.

In 2023, the IADC Mississippi and Lafay-
ette chapters merged to form the Gulf
Coast Chapter. Rob Holbrook, who had
previously served as Chair of the Mis-
sissippi Chapter, now serves as one of
two Vice Chairs for the new chapter.

He currently serves as Vice President at
the company, which has built up its fleet
to nine land rigs, including two 2,000-hp,
super spec AC rigs, as of early 2024.

Long-term relationships also define Mr
Holbrook’s time with IADC. He first became
active with IADC in the early 1990s, but he
didn’t he agree to take on a leadership
role until the early 2000s. In 2003, he
became Chairman of the then-Mississippi
Chapter, succeeding then-Chapter Chair
Rod Freeman.

The two have worked together in leader-
ship roles with the chapter for much of the
past 20 years, primarily organizing social
events like luncheons and an annual golf
tournament. In 2023, recognizing that there are now
fewer drilling contractors working in the
region, the Mississippi Chapter merged
with the Lafayette Chapter to form the Gulf
Coast Chapter. Mr Freeman took over as
Chair of the new chapter, and Mr Holbrook
took over as one of two Vice Chairs, serv-
ing alongside David Cothren. The newly
merged chapter held its first golf tourna-
ment this past October in Gulfport, Miss.

The group is still considering how to
proceed for the future, but Mr Holbrook
said the aim will continue to focus on
providing a forum for members to network
and exchange ideas and best practices.

“Right now, the focus is on continuing
to do what we’ve been doing, and we’ll
see what else we can do beyond that,” he
said. DC
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