Ivory Villegas struggled during his first years at Texas Tech. Then he took an internship that ignited his passion for petroleum engineering and established him as a department leader.

Nine-year-old Ivory Villegas peered up at the Spanish Renaissance architecture of Texas Tech University. 

Freshly moved from the small town of Denver City, Texas, surrounded by oil fields, he had never seen such beautiful buildings as he did when he tagged alongside his mom to her accounting job on campus. She would give him a tour of sorts enroute to her office, explaining the different colleges and dormitories they passed.

Ivory hungrily took it all in, awestruck by the hustle and bustle of backpack-clad students striding to class. 

“Texas Tech became a huge part of our lives,” he recalled. “I knew for a fact that I wanted to be a part of it.”

Throughout the changes from an adolescent to teenager to young adult, Ivory never swayed from his university of choice. He proudly wore the Double T every chance he got, daydreaming about becoming a Red Raider with his friends.

Ivory even knew what major he wanted to pursue: petroleum engineering, a nod to the pump jacks that surrounded his former elementary school. 

“Anytime I would go in and out of school, I would see what looked like a horse moving up and down,” he recounted with a chuckle. “At that point, I had no idea it was a pump jack. It just looked like a big statue of a horse that moved.”

Ivory’s parents both emigrated to the U.S. from Mexico when they were teenagers, and many of their family members found work in the oil and gas industry. Ivory’s father even moved pipes and tubing with a forklift in the oil field, and sometimes Ivory tagged along. 

Nearly a decade later, the petroleum engineering industry became not only compelling to Ivory as he researched related occupations, but also nostalgic. 

“A lot of the operations and job locations associated with petroleum engineering are very close to what I’m familiar with and what I grew up with,” Ivory said. “So I felt very comfortable going into a career like that and it made me all the more excited to see myself in those technical positions.”

Ivory admits he put all his eggs in one basket when he applied to Texas Tech his final year of high school. He checked his email constantly to see if he was admitted, and when that day finally came, he jumped for joy even though he was in class. 

But sometimes great expectations lead to great disappointment, as Ivory finally joined the Bob L. Herd Department of Petroleum Engineering during the year thwarted by challenges: 2020. 

Trudging Through Trials 

Like much of the U.S. during the COVID-19 pandemic, Texas Tech was different than Ivory remembered. The campus seemed deserted as compared to the crowded sidewalks he walked as a child. 

The university’s pulse he once found exhilarating was weakened as students took most of their classes online. 

“It was a stark contrast and very strange to see,” he divulged. “I tried to take as many in-person classes as I possibly could. I feel like that’s how I learned best.”

It took a full year for the foot traffic on campus to pick back up, to Ivory’s relief. But by then, his foundational engineering classes were challenging him. The broad concepts were difficult to grasp, nonspecific to his major, and he struggled to form connections within his classes as most other students already belonged to study groups. 

Ivory decided to join a Greek fraternity in fall 2021 to develop more friendships. It worked – surrounding him with hundreds of peers who were more outgoing than he considered himself. Yet while his social circle began to expand, he continued to struggle academically. 

By that spring, Ivory could recognize this weak point of being distracted and disengaged during his classes. He believed he could gain focus by joining the American Association of Drilling Engineers (AADE), the International Association of Drilling Contractors (IADC) and the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) – surrounding himself with high-achieving classmates. 

Ivory attended tailgates, information sessions and other events hosted by these student organizations, which introduced him to professionals within the industry that began to expand his network. He felt positively affirmed by the experience and wanted to pursue more educational opportunities within his department that he was finding increasingly interesting. 

“I looked at everything a little more closely with my broader perspective,” he said, “and that’s when I got my internship.”

Invigorating Internship 

It was the summer of 2023 when Ivory found himself in an unairconditioned trailer house in the small town of Perryton, Texas, without hot water or a refrigerator. 

His showers at a truck stop served as a time of reflection. 

“I thought it would be a novel experience to live out of a trailer house and work in oil, so that is something that I opted for” he remembered. “It seemed like a fun idea, but it ended up being a pretty miserable living experience.”

Despite the missing amenities, each time Ivory would clock into his shift at Mewbourne Oil Company, he could finally envision a career path ahead as a petroleum engineer. 

“I got super into what I was going to be doing,” he said. “I was learning so much, but it wasn’t overwhelming. I was taking it all in.”

It helped that those Ivory was absorbing information from had decades of field work experience. Ivory describes those formative weeks spent alongside such professionals as a “coming-of-age moment” for him. 

The pump jacks morphed from the initial horse statues in his mind to a technical piece of equipment used to pump crude oil from underground reservoirs.

“Knowing all the technical aspects of it and being able to understand what’s actually going on is a super cathartic thing for me nowadays,” he noted. 

Ivory’s newfound passion for petroleum engineering continued once he returned to campus. He was fully invested in his classes, eager to learn anything he could to distinguish himself in the industry.  

Ivory best describes this transition as he had seen the light and could not look away. 

“I loved every minute of that semester and the semesters after that,” he shared. “I loved going to class and I loved everybody in my classes who became some of my closest friends that I will continue to talk to after I graduate.”

The change in Ivory was both evident and understandable to Marshall Watson, the petroleum engineering department chair. 

“It’s not unusual for somebody like Ivory to fall in love with the oil and gas industry one they experience the profession and see what the people are all about,” Watson remarked. “That’s certainly the way it was for me once I had my first internship, even though I spent my younger years out in the field with my grandfather, who was a production foreman for Pan American (Amoco). It was not until I was professionally immersed into the business that I fell in love with it.”

Likewise, Ivory’s newfound buy-in strengthened his grades and connections enough to earn a position as president to both AADE and IADC by spring 2024. 

In a full-circle moment, Ivory was able to lead students struggling to engage during their first years of college. 

“A lot of engineering students don’t have the confidence it takes to join organizations or become incredibly involved,” he explained. “So, whenever I stepped into these presidency roles, I began talking to some of the more introverted engineering students I saw around the department to bring them out of their shell so they can experience some of the events that we put on. And it’s not just beneficial to them because it makes them happy to have that comfort from a friend and leader, but it also helps their network and career in that sense.”

Ivory does this all with a smile on his face – a firm believer that the positive energy generated from inspiring joy in others is contagious. 

“As soon as I wake up in the morning, I try to snap a smile on my face and make everyone around me feel good, even if I don’t really feel like it,” he said. “It makes a huge difference in everyone else’s life.”

Graduating with Gratitude 

With pep in his step, Ivory embarked upon another internship with Mewbourne Oil Company last summer, except this time in Hobbs, New Mexico. The location was perfect – a little more than an hour-and-a-half from Lubbock and only 20 minutes away from Denver City. 

His rewarding time there concluded with a full-time job offer of an operations position at the Hobbs oilfield location. Ivory eagerly accepted. 

“That felt very similar to my excitement whenever I got my acceptance letter from Texas Tech,” he reflected of the moment. “The offer Mewbourne gave me hit me like a freight train, and it was an amazing rush.”

Ivory is quick to recognize the role his parents and mentors have played in his success. Watson in particular has advised him to continue his tenacity and leadership once he enters the workplace, among other words of wisdom that Ivory will never forget.  

In turn, Watson feels assured that Ivory will continue to make a difference in the Whitacre College and beyond. 

“He’s my go-to guy when I need something done because I know he’s going to take action and not put it off,” Watson commended. “He’s very dependable and he’s a leader, and people with those two traits are going to be called upon many times to take on responsibilities that catapult them to higher places in the industry.”

In fact, with a job already secured, Ivory has focused his final semester at Texas Tech on helping other students have impactful college experiences like he ended up having after all. He aims to accomplish this through a foundation that will host a black-tie fundraiser event for Whitacre College student scholarships. 

This will provide Ivory with the opportunity to not only return to campus periodically and continue encouraging the next generation of engineers, but also to give back to the university that turned out to be everything he dreamed of as a child – and then some.  

“I couldn’t have imagined college going a better way,” he said. “It is amazing to look back at how much has changed for me and for the better. I think that everything building up to where I am right now has had a profound effect on me. As small as an experience might have seemed in the moment, it was all making me who I am today – and I couldn’t be happier with where I’m going.”