Remembering Jake Rathmell

James Jacob Rathmell (Jake) was born in La Tuna, Texas, the fourth of 10 children, of Bill and Mardell (nee Hazel) Rathmell on October 14, 1935.
Jake was hired by Atlantic Refining Co. (later ARCO) in their Dallas based Production Research Dept. He spent 35 years at ARCO managing laboratories developing technology for oil recovery and reserve evaluation, rising to the level of Senior Research Advisor. His development of Low Invasion Coring had industry wide impact. He was recipient of the John Franklin Carll award from the Society of Petroleum Engineers and a Lifetime Achievement award from the Society of Core Analysts. After retiring from ARCO in 1999, Jake consulted for several major oil companies until 2010 in Alaska, Norway, Russia, Algeria, Ecuador, China, Oman, Qatar, and Abu Dahbi in laboratory and coring projects.

Bruce Dingeman, a member of Energy Alumni, shared: “I wasn’t aware that he was fighting cancer. I remember wrapping core at Prudhoe under his direction in the mid 80s. Where did the time go?”