Leslie: In the Lead

Leslie Anderson

I say “newly named” because he’s not new to Willliams – or the area.

Leslie Anderson has been with Williams since 2006. That’s when he joined our brand new Barnett Shale office in Fort Worth.

Now, he brings more than 30 years of industry experience to accompany his new title.

Most recently, he was in charge of the natural gas production from our wells in the southern section of the Barnett Shale. For us, that encompasses our operations south of Fort Worth in towns such as Burleson.

Prior to Williams, Leslie held a variety of positions with ARCO and Forest Oil in Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, California, Colorado and Louisiana.

He’s a registered professional engineer by trade (like others on our local staff) and has a petroleum engineering degree from Texas Tech.

Leslie has a long history in horizontal drilling, which is the technique we use to tap the natural gas that is “trapped” in underground Barnett Shale rocks.

In 1981, he worked on an ARCO project team in New Mexico that drilled a 700-foot, short-radius, horizontal well using flexible drill collars. It was the first project of its kind in the area.

But Leslie he has never forgotten his first summer job as a teenager near his hometown of Odessa.

He worked as a field-hand clearing mesquite tree roots from a pipeline trench that was 2-feet wide by 5-feet deep.

He recalls that “the trench ran as far as you could see in both directions” and “the axes they gave us just caused the roots to bounce back at us when we tried to chop them.”

On a personal level, Leslie enjoys carpentry, fishing, swimming and adventure novels. He and his wife, Jenny, have two grown children and one granddaughter.

Lastly, our Regional VP, Tony Silvestri, had this to say about appointing Leslie to take the top local spot.

“We’ve made considerable investments in the Barnett Shale since 2005. Leslie is the right one to lead the various disciplines that maintain our wells and support facilities here.”