Negotiator, master collaborator, strategist
One of the most enduring lessons Stephen Suellentrop, PetE’74, MS PetE’75, took from the years he spent in Rolla revolves around challenges. “I learned they’re not terminal,” he says.
Suellentrop says that playing Miner football in the early 1970s often felt like a struggle. Tempted to give up, the team persevered, applying its best to formidable opponents. “We pulled together to identify our weaknesses, then tried to strengthen those areas,” he says. “We collaborated until the end.”
His ability to strategically navigate challenges served him well in his career, which took him, his wife, Betty, and their two children around the world. In 1975, he joined Atlantic Richfield Corporation (ARCO), holding positions in Texas, California and Alaska. Promoted to vice president of engineering in 1991, Suellentrop negotiated the company’s entry into Algeria. In 1994 he transferred to Guildford, England, then returned to Dallas in 1999 as vice president of technology and operations.
The oil industry wasn’t initially on Suellentrop’s radar, but a conversation with a fraternity brother about scholarships led him to the petroleum engineering program and to Jack Govier, a faculty member who became a major influence.
The industry turned out to be a good fit. “Drilling exploration involves complex data as well as lots of intuition,” he says. “Engineering is the foundation, but it’s also creative.”
Suellentrop joined Hunt Oil Co. in 2000, which took him to Peru, where he secured more than $2 billion in financing and managed the design and construction of a liquid natural gas facility and an accompanying 400-kilometer pipeline. At 14,000 feet above the Andes, it’s the world’s highest certified operating pipeline crossing. Suellentrop became president of Hunt in 2011.
“We pulled together to identify our weaknesses, then tried to strengthen those areas. We collaborated until the end.”
As an executive, Suellentrop drew on the communication and collaboration skills he’d developed on the football field and had sharpened throughout his career. “Building strong relationships with the people you manage is the most important part of being a leader,” he says. “I don’t like sitting in an office with my head down, so constant engagement with employees was ideal for me.”
The Suellentrops have supported Missouri S&T since the 1980s with gifts to Miner Athletics, student recreation, the petroleum engineering program and the Havener Arrival Complex. They are members of the Order of the Golden Shillelagh. Stephen served on the Missouri S&T Board of Trustees, delivered a commencement address in 2018, when he was awarded the doctor of engineering, honoris causa, and was inducted into the Mines and Metallurgy Academy in 2022. He received an Award of Professional Distinction in petroleum engineering in 1999.
“S&T is part of my family,” says Suellentrop, who has four brothers, one sister-in-law and one brother-in-law who graduated from the university. “We’ve all had successful careers thanks to Missouri S&T.”
Suellentrop says the value of an S&T education continues to impress him. “Kids graduating from much more expensive schools struggle to get their careers launched,” he says. “Students come out of S&T with a phenomenal path forward.”
Since his retirement in 2019, Suellentrop’s volunteer commitments have ranged from helping Catholic Charities Dallas provide shelter, food, counseling and other services to Dallas’ unhoused people to serving on The Dallas Opera Board of Directors.
“The arts are necessary,” he says. “They take the edge off the facts and figures and the day-to-day elements of life. They provide a space where you can find something creative that’s fulfilling, that creates a sense of wholeness that rounds you out.”