Clay Gaspar - President and COO, WPX Energy

EDUCATION:  Humble High School - 1990 Texas A&M University, BS in Petroleum Engineering University of Texas at Austin, MS Petroleum Engineering

Back in the day, I left home with $1,000, knowing full well it wouldn’t be enough to get me through college. I turned to scholarships, side jobs, summer jobs and student loans. More than two decades later, I’m the President and Chief Operating Officer at Tulsa-based WPX Energy (NYSE:WPX), where I oversee a $1 billion annual capital budget and have been involved with $8 billion of acquisitions and divestitures.

Before WPX, I was a field engineer at Mewbourne Oil, served in various roles at Anadarko Petroleum and became a VP at Newfield Exploration. My advice to students is to work more than you think you need to during your freshman year – then you can adjust from there to make sure you enjoy your experience. If you get behind in your first year, it may be your last.