Chapter Eternal Stories

David Marcel Hite, '58-381, Sherwood, OR, Mar. 20, 1939 - Jan. 4, 2024, passed away in Bend Oregon where he lived after returning to Oregon from Alaska.  He was 84 years old.

David was raised in Oregon. He believed deeply in the value of education, largely due to the influence of his paternal grandmother, who was one of the first female graduates of Oregon State University. He was encouraged to excel academically, and he often said that at the age of 8, he knew he wanted to be a geologist. He graduated from Oregon State University Corvallis with a Bachelor of Science degree, and University of Wisconsin Madison with M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Geology. David's field work for his graduate degrees was largely done in the Canadian Arctic.

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He became a member of KDR, Sigma Chapter on Apr. 19, 1958

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David was instrumental in his advice and guidance to the Sigma Building Corporation/Alumni Association Board of Directors for many years.  His friendship and brotherhood will be missed by all that knew him.

 

Article written in the Petroleum News by Kay Cashman, Jan. 21, 2024 issue

Petroleum geologist David Hite passes; legacy of work in Alaska Long-time petroleum geologist David M. Hite passed away recently in Bend, Oregon, where he retired in 2014 after closing his Anchorage office where he worked as a consulting petroleum geologist on oil and gas exploration, prospect evaluation and basin analysis.

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Dave earned a B.S. in geology from Oregon State University and M.S. and

PhD degrees from the University of Madison-Wisconsin.

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He began his career with Atlantic Richfield Co. in 1967 with the applied research group.

Dave subsequently served as exploration geologist, senior staff geologist, exploration manager, senior exploration adviser and manager of geotechnical services for Atlantic Richfield and ARCO Alaska Inc., per AAPG Memoir 104, published 2013, which also said he had 45 years of experience in oil and gas research, exploration and development, resource evaluation and management.  He worked for ARCO for a total of 24 years, with 15 years in Alaska.  

Starting in 1992 Dave was a consulting petroleum geologist based in Anchorage. In this capacity he consulted with oil companies such as Exxon, BP, Phillips, ARCO Alaska and Anadarko, as well as numerous smaller independents and utilities, per AAPG Memoir 104.  Memoir 104 also said that Dave consulted for a number of state and federal agencies and Alaska Native corporations.

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Dave also served as a member on the National Academy of Sciences Polar Research Board and as a member on the National Resources Council Committee on Cumulative Environmental Effects of Oil and Gas Activities on Alaska's North Slope.

He was also editor of a comprehensive volume on Cook Inlet oil and gas, a member of the State Mapping Board for years, and organizer of two Pacific Section AAPG meetings in Anchorage.

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Dave also provided story ideas to Petroleum News and was willing to comment when asked, such as in the July 13, 2008, issue for a story titled "Gull Island buzz: 200 years of oil from Alaska's North Slope?"  The legend of Alaska's Gull Island, a speck of land 4 miles or so off shore the North Slope in the middle of Prudhoe Bay, seems to have an uncanny ability to appear when the United States is facing soaring oil and gasoline prices.

As oil prices started climbing in 2006 past $60 per barrel, sometime Baptist missionary Lindsey Williams told a meeting of the Midwest Concerned Citizens group in Kansas City about how the fabulous Gull Island field could supply the United States with oil for 200 years.  Gasoline prices could drop to just $1.50 per gallon if only the U.S. government and the oil companies were to open the spigots on the vast, undisclosed North Slope oil reserves, he claimed.

Hite briefly sat on the first well, and later told me the so-called “massive discovery “was not in any sense real.