Pete Rose, a renowned and highly active member of AAPG and the wider petroleum industry, passed away on Dec. 19, 2022. He was 87 years old.
“The recent passing of Dr. Peter Rose was a shock to many AAPG members,” said past AAPG President Patrick J.F. Gratton.
“To say that Pete had a strong drive would be a great understatement! His contribution to AAPG as president-elect when I was president was extraordinary, only to be exceeded when he became president,” Gratton added. “Especially noticed was his well-focused driving personality backed up with strong presentations and results which benefited AAPG. He was a great help to me and I tried to do the same for him.”
Rose was president of AAPG in 2005-06, as well as chair of the Advisory Council, a member of at least 10 committees (serving as chair of three), president and Life Member of the Division of Professional Affairs, president of the Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies, a charter member of both the Energy Minerals Division and the Division of Environmental Geoscience, winner of the AAPG Distinguished Service Award, Distinguished Lecturer and columnist of the EXPLORER’s popular “Business Side of Geology” series from 2001-2004.
Rose won AAPG’s Michel T. Halbouty Outstanding Leadership Award in 2014, and to mark the occasion, his long and storied career was the subject of an article in the April 2014 issue of the EXPLORER, entitled, “Risky Business: A Career of Taking Chances.”
Gratton, a Halbouty recipient himself, said of Rose, “His recognition at AAPG was underscored by receiving AAPG’s Halbouty Outstanding Leadership Award and his leadership in making international membership broader, more appreciated and financially easier was typical of his management style.”
“But, there was another side to Pete: supportive, positive, understanding and encouraging to those of us who stumbled quite often!” Gratton added.
In 1998, Rose founded and presided over Rose & Associates, a globally recognized E&P risk assessment firm based in Houston, retiring in 2005 when he began his term as AAPG president.
He has a litany of other accomplishments and accolades to his name from his long career in geology: He’s been an author, an activist, a teacher and the head of the oil and gas branch of the U.S. Geological Survey, as well as a recipient of other prestigious industry awards too numerous to do justice here.
Rose is arguably best known in the industry for a book he published in 2001, which some in the industry regard as the bible of exploration risk and resource assessment: “Risk Analysis and Management of Petroleum Exploration Ventures.” The volume has seen multiple printings and has been translated into Mandarin, Japanese and Russian.
He is also widely known for “Rose’s Rules,” a collection of proverbs and adages he compiled over his long life from various sources and was known to pass out in pamphlet form at speaking occasions, which are published here, by popular demand.
In Memory