MEET THE TEAM
RUSTY RITZ
PRESIDENT & OWNER
Rusty Ritz graduated from Texas A&M University in 1989 with a BS in Petroleum Engineering. He started in the drilling industry working for Schlumberger, then Cliffs Drilling on offshore and land drilling rigs in the Gulf Coast area and internationally. In 1996, he began work for HTK Consultants, Inc. He has been with the company for 25 years. In October of 2020, Rusty purchased HTK and now serves as President for the company.
Over his career, he has worked in many locales and for numerous oil and gas operators of varying sizes and in roles from drilling and completion engineer through executive management. He spent the many of those years working on Gulf of Mexico offshore projects, including deep water and shelf drilling. Most of the offshore work was comprised of conventional well drilling and completion. Land and inland projects included Louisiana land and coastal zones, South Texas, East Texas, and New Mexico. Over the past several years, with the advent of the unconventional horizontal plays, he worked in a number of areas, including Oklahoma’s Woodford Shale, the Texas panhandle’s Granite Wash, the Cotton Valley in East Texas, and the Eagleford Shale play in South Texas. He has served in executive roles in drilling and completion operations. Internationally, he spent time working in Mexico, Venezuela, and Brazil and on projects in the North Sea and West Africa.
He is an active member of AADE, SPE and the Pipeliners Association of Houston. He served in varying offices for AADE including president and is currently serving as Treasurer for Houston Chapter.
GILBERT ORNELAS
BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER
Gilbert currently serves as the Business Development Manager for HTK. He is a proven and driven professional who serves his clients with utmost commitment and integrity, takes his work personally, and prides himself on keeping his word.
Gilbert started his oilfield career in 1995 when he went to work for Smith International as a Smith Bit Field Salesman. Gilbert worked in the Texas oilfields for 6 years as a field salesman and was then promoted to executive account manager in 2001 where he began building his global network of clients over the next 15 years. Gilbert’s experience is very widespread working in Israel, Africa, Europe, China, Middle East, and every domestic basin for various key clients.
Working with many oil and gas companies, Gilbert was promoted to Global Account Manager where he helped to assemble teams of professional salesman representing all of Smith’s business units: bits, services, tools and directional services with key global accounts. When Schlumberger purchased Smith, Gilbert was then promoted to account manager for Pathfinder D&M Global where he grew revenues for key accounts to record highs.
In 2016, he went to work as an account manager at Drilformance/Accel Directional and spent the next 3 years helping achieve record high revenues and job count. In 2019 Gilbert joined Patriot Drilling Services to assist with business development. He joined the HTK Team in 2020.