Barbara J. Kleinschnitz has accrued more than 30 years of expertise in her role as a consultant and technical writer on behalf of the oil and gas industry. Before embarking upon her professional journey, she completed coursework at Colorado Women’s College in Denver and earned a Bachelor of Business Administration in oil and gas management at the University of Denver in 1983. Ms. Kleinschnitz entered the energy industry out of a desire to be on the cutting edge of technology and to work with computers.
From 1968 until 1976, Ms. Kleinschnitz excelled as a lead woman for Schlumberger Well Services of Denver and is proud to have been the first woman to hold that position in the region. She ended up becoming the lead person at their print center in the Western region, which became her learning experience. She had someone that worked there, who took her under his wing and mentored her. It had to do with the well logs; they had databases and do individual wells in that position, and that is what Ms. Kleinschnitz did. They would figure out using algorithms the possibility of oil in the ground from the well logs that they used. The well logs were something that they performed in different holes.
Ms. Kleinschnitz became a supervisor and log processor for Scientific Software-Intercomp in 1976, departing in 1982 to serve as a consultant for Technological Log Analysis, Inc. of Lakewood, Colorado, where she would maintain activity through 1983. She continued her career as a customer support manager for Energy Systems Technologies, Inc., between 1983 and 1986, and an independent technical consultant based out of Littleton, Colorado, from 1986 to 1987. Ms. Kleinschnitz was a documentation specialist at Q.C. Data, Inc., from 1987 to 1991 and a training specialist at Advanced Data Concepts between 1991 and 1993. She pivoted towards technical writing at Computer Data Systems, Inc., from 1993 to 1997, where she did training manuals. She wrote “how-to” manuals, especially when trying to figure out what good and bad logs look like. She became a staff technical writer for Management Tech, Inc., from 1998 until 1999 and, since 1997, she has found success as an instructor at the Institute of Business and Medical Careers in Fort Collins, Colorado.
Active in her local community, Ms. Kleinschnitz is a member of the National Association of Female Executives, the National Organization of Women, the Association of Women Geoscientists, the vice president of memberships for the Society of Professional Well Log Analysts and the president of the Denver Well Logging Society. During her time with the Denver Well Logging Society, they held the 1989 SPWLA Symposium in Denver, of which her society launched and did the work on. She considers that to be the greatest thing that she did. Ms. Kleinschnitz also volunteered with the Denver Police Reserve from 1973 to 1975.
Ms. Kleinschnitz became involved in her profession because after she had her daughter, she decided she needed to go back to work. She wanted a job that paid well and was on the cutting edge, and she thought the oil industry did that. She always knew she wanted to work with computers. Her favorite part of her profession was the good and bad parts of it; it was the fact that it was a male-dominated field. They weren’t that great on letting people in, especially women, but the better part was that some of them did open up and let others in on the secrets that they kept. To her, it was kind of like a double-edged sword. Moving forward, Ms. Kleinschnitz likes traveling and wants to continue doing that until she cannot do it anymore. She is the proud mother of one wonderful daughter, Katheryn JoAnn Kleinschnitz-Hartsock.