Energy demand and production are mainstay topics in the Tenth District, where the energy sector is major employer and a vital component of the regional economy.

As president of Crawley Petroleum Corporation, a privately held oil and gas exploration company based in Oklahoma City, Jason Garner has an up-close view of the role that energy plays in economic discussions. Garner, who joined the Kansas City Fed’s Oklahoma City Branch Board of Directors this year, served in recent years on the District’s Economic Advisory Council (EAC), providing insight gained over more than 30 years in oil and gas exploration.

Before becoming president at Crawley, Garner, a West Virginia native, worked in executive roles and other positions with the company and earlier gained industry experience in roles with HighMount E&P and Dominion Energy. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Petroleum Engineering from West Virginia University.

At Crawley, “We feel like providing low-cost energy to our state and the country is a really noble task, so we work hard at doing that as well as we can,” Garner said, noting that the company’s Oklahoma roots go back to its founding in 1972. Today Crawley operates more than 600 properties in Oklahoma and Texas and has economic interests in an additional 1,600 properties operated by others.

For Garner, serving as an EAC member and getting to know leaders and staff at the Kansas City Fed were instrumental factors in his decision to accept the opportunity to become a Reserve Bank director.

“To a person the people that I met who were Fed employees, you could just tell they were people of high character when you talked to them for any length of time,” Garner said. “I always want to associate myself with people of high character, but no matter how good their intentions, their ability to do their job is only as good and timely as the information they have. I hope to be useful in providing that input.”

With a significant portion of Crawley’s business operations taking place in western Oklahoma, Garner said that he can provide perspectives to the Board about current and future business cycles in that region and elsewhere in the District.

“We are at the tip of the spear on energy, and I think I can bring some of that forward-looking view of the oil and gas industry in the Tenth District because it’s a really important component,” he said.

Learning and sharing knowledge with leaders from the Fed and other industries also are appealing aspects of Board service.

“For me it’s all about relationships,” Garner said. “Those can be lifelong friendships and relationships in all sorts of ways…in knowing how the Fed works, certainly, but also in business and life in general.”

Learn more about Mr. Garner here.

The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the positions of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City or the Federal Reserve System.