Delores (Dee) James Hinkle, SPE Distinguished Member, died 14 March 2023. She was 69.
Her 38-year career in the oil industry included various production and reservoir positions for Sun, ARCO, and Marathon Oil in Alaska, Wyoming, Oklahoma, and Texas before her retirement from Marathon Oil in 2013 as director of corporate reserves.
SPE Honorary Member, C. Susan Howes, recalls her 2-decade-long friendship with Dee.
“As a reservoir engineer, I’ve known Dee Hinkle for many years through her work as chair of the SPE Oil and Gas Reserves Committee and her involvement in the development of SPE’s Petroleum Resource Management System. She also invited me to join the board of the San Jacinto Council of Girl Scouts, where she served as the president/board chair (2018–2020) as well as in many other volunteer roles. Dee’s enthusiasm and tireless dedication to her volunteer service as a leader for both SPE and Girl Scouts was an inspiration to many of us who served with her.
“When Dee became the first woman in the SPE Gulf Coast Region (GCS) to achieve Legion of Honor for 50 years of SPE membership in 2020, we acknowledged the recipients virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. She joyfully celebrated her 51st year of SPE membership when the SPE GCS Awards and Scholarship Banquet returned to an in-person celebration in 2021.”
In 2014, she was awarded SPE Distinguished Membership and the GCS Regional Reservoir Description and Dynamics Award.
An SPE member since 1971, she was a member of the Gulf Coast Section, Distinguished Lecturer Committee, International Awards and Award Committees Review Task Force, Management and Information Advisory Committee, JPT Editorial Review Board, Oil & Gas Reserves Committee, 2007–2009 ATCE Management Subcommittees, and 2008 ATCE Digital Energy Subcommittee. She also served as the bureau vice chair of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe’s Ad Hoc Group of Experts and was a technical editor for the Oil and Gas Journal.
She was also involved with the Hydrocarbon Economics and Evaluation Symposium, Canadian Unconventional Resources Conference, Petroleum Reserves Estimation Workshop: Sharing the Vision, and the SPE Annual Technical Conference & Exhibition.
In addition to her SPE involvement, she was a member of the Missouri S&T Academy of Mines and Metallurgy, president-elect of the Miner Alumni Association, and a member of S&T’s Order of the Golden Shillelagh. She also worked with the Fort Bend Children’s Discovery Center in Sugar Land, Texas.
Hinkle was the recipient of a 4-year Union Oil academic scholarship. She held a BS in petroleum engineering from Missouri S&T and an MBA from the University of Alaska-Anchorage. In 2017, Missouri S&T presented her with an honorary doctorate.
