Leslie Haines
Editor's note: This profile is part of Hart Energy's 50th anniversary Hall of Fame series honoring industry pioneers of the past 50 years and the Agents of Change (ACEs) who are leading the energy sector into the future.
Leslie Haines, queen of the oil patch, editor of Oil & Gas Investor and industry icon, was also my colleague, coworker and friend. I knew Leslie professionally before I joined Hart as executive editor of E&P magazine, and I had great respect for her as a writer and editor. Working alongside Leslie gave me even more reasons to respect her. I had the opportunity to appreciate her kindness, generosity and integrity and to see firsthand her commitment to her craft and dedication to the industry she served.
Leslie was universally respected for her professionalism, insight and leadership, and her reputation in the industry as a leader and thinker was as prominent as her reputation as a writer and editor.
Rich Eichler, whose career as chairman and CEO of Hart overlapped with Leslie’s career as editor for nearly 40 years, says Leslie’s ability to recognize trends was a valued asset.
“One of many examples was her avid support of NAPE,” Eichler says. “From her pulpit on the editorial page, she advocated for establishing NAPE because of its potential as a forum for connecting decision makers and investors.” Now, 30 years after its inception, NAPE is the energy industry’s marketplace for buying, selling and trading prospects and producing properties. Leslie also was an early adopter and promoter of shale development, he said. “She was one of the creators of the successful DUG event franchise.”
According to industry executive Douglas Brooks, it was Leslie’s rare way of looking at things that allowed her to identify trends and recognize their significance. “There was always a unique angle to her stories,” Brooks says. “Sometimes the focus was a person, sometimes the rock, and sometimes a new technology.”
He describes Leslie as a “connector of people and concepts,” who became an industry insider—despite her role as an editor—establishing lasting friendships with the people financing the future of energy.
Nissa Darbonne, editor-at-large at Hart Energy and former editor of OGI, who worked with Leslie for more than two decades, says the relationships Leslie formed were unique. Executives valued her, she says. “I only needed to stand next to Leslie at events, and the oil and gas world would come to me.”
Although Leslie was not interested in being the center of attention, more often than not, she was.
“Leslie was everyone’s friend,” says Shelley Lamb, who filled multiple roles over her career at Hart, including publisher of OGI. “She wanted to tell their story, and they trusted her with her words.”
To industry veterans like Bruce Vincent, CEO of Vincent Energy, Leslie was never “just a writer writing stories.” She was intrigued by the industry and used him as a sounding board for the things she heard and observed. “Those conversations would often lead us to a kernel we weren’t aware of,” he says, and that often led to another new perspective and another interesting and insightful article.
“Leslie made an impact on our industry one story at a time,” Vincent says.
—Judy Murray