J. A. (John) Turley grew up in San Diego, California. Advanced degrees in petroleum engineering and ocean engineering from the Colorado School of Mines and the University of Miami and a three-year petroleum-engineering professorship at Marietta College preceded his oil-and-gas-industry career. His two decades of offshore drilling- and project-management responsibilities with a major U.S. energy company began with the Gulf of Mexico, evolved to the North Sea, were bolstered by executive education at Harvard Business School, and led him to be named manager of worldwide drilling. After a number o...