Chad Koury is the owner of Koury Geosteering, an oil and gas consultant company, located in Morgantown, West Virginia. Koury Geosteering provides geological services that support horizontal drilling. Koury Geosteering is in their fifth year of business and ninth year in the oil and gas industry.
Koury is a petroleum engineer and received a Bachelor of Science in Geology from West Virginia University (WVU) in 2010. He also completed his Masters of Science in Geology from WVU in 2016.
Koury talked with Jim Matuga, host of The Positively West Virginia Podcast, about his business, his biggest challenge and his advice to young entrepreneurs.
How did you get started in this line of work?
“My senior year I was able to take part in the ACCESS program and take WVU classes as a senior in high school. As a senior in high school, I spent more time at the university than at high school and\ as you can tell I was ready to get out of there. I love history so I took History 101, Algebra, Trigonometry and then I took Geology. I was thinking to myself, I’ll just get it out of the way quickly. It’s one of those general education curriculum classes. After the first lecture, I had Jack Brenten as my professor, I realized the universe is a really big place. At the end of the lecture, I realized that this subject was really fascinating,” Koury said.
“I spent my first year as a music major. I wanted to be a rock star and I still am. The challenge that I faced was that it was a bad decision in hindsight, but it was what I needed to do to mature to that point.”
“Towards the end of my undergrad, it was 2010 and oil and gas was booming in this region. With a geology degree and a positive attitude, I received a job really quickly.”
What is a big challenge you face?
“I would say that there is a lot of larger companies who are moving towards an in-house style of operations,” said Koury. “There is always a shuffling of the deck. The challenge that I face is that I’m not physically in a region where there is a lot of companies that need my help.”
What is one piece of advice you would give a young entrepreneur?
“The thing about West Virginia it has great hospitality and great pride. I would say, never forget where you came from because you could get that degree, get the experience and move, but if you want to move home, there’s a lot of opportunities here.”
Koury was a guest on The Positively West Virginia Podcast. Listen to his full podcast here.
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- PIECE OF ADVICE: “Never forget where you came from,” advised Koury.