John Sabia was working at Goldman Sachs & Co. in Philadelphia right at the time the Marcellus-Utica Shale boom was taking off. During that time, he formed oil and gas connections, which resulted in meeting Robert Gaudin, founder of Holland Services, who asked him to move to Fort Worth, Texas, to join the company.

Sabia made the move to Fort Worth where he served as senior vice president at Holland Services and helped start the company’s Integrated Asset Management group where he managed working interests, minerals and royalties for institutional clients and family offices. Shortly thereafter, Gaudin made the decision to venture into the mineral and royalty space with a large institutional backer and asked Sabia to manage the growth and development of Vine Royalty LP, which quickly grew to include assets across the U.S.

Leveraging the experiences from Holland and Vine, Sabia would later form Point Energy Partners, also based in Fort Worth, with friend and partner Bryan Moody, who was previously with Eclipse Resources Corp., and a capital partner and strategic advisor. The company has and is building an operated acreage position in the Delaware Basin.

“My strengths coupled with Bryan’s made the foundation for a great team and we were able to find private equity financing to move forward with us. In the fall of 2016, we started working a bunch of deals together,” Sabia said. “Though we did not win any of those deals, we knew we would eventually get one and found a company off of it.”

Sabia received his undergraduate degree in geospatial information systems from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., in 2004. He served in the U.S. Army as an Infantry platoon leader for more than three years, which included a tour in Iraq. He also earned an MBA from the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School and graduated from U.S. Army Ranger and Airborne schools.

A recent newlywed, Sabia enjoys sports and traveling during his free time.

Investor What was your experience like growing Vine Royalty?

Sabia It was a blast; I loved it. Minerals are interesting because there are so many transactions—you could be doing two or three transactions in a day, so 30-plus transactions a month. It is fast-paced and at the time it was very competitive in places like Appalachia, Wattenberg, the Eagle Ford and North Dakota—all those places we were buying minerals, so it was really active and I enjoyed it.

Investor What do you enjoy about your role as CFO and in business development?

Sabia I’m a numbers person so I enjoy the opportunity to be CFO. I also like getting out and beating the street for deals from my time doing minerals, so I love the business development aspect. This unique role blends two things I enjoy, which is numbers and meeting interesting people.

In E&P, there is a lot more going on, so that’s a plus. There is also a lot more diversity in terms of daily tasks and things to do. I will say it’s a little slower pace in finding deals and working them, and really, that’s just the nature of the size of every individual deal.

Investor How did Point Energy Partners get into the Delaware Basin?

Sabia At the end of 2016, me, Bryan Moody and a private backer started to look for operated assets to acquire. We looked at a lot of data rooms, mostly in the Rockies, and specifically the San Juan Basin, to acquire PDP properties, and continued digging around in the Delaware Basin and adding to our team. Finally, around mid-spring (2017), we decided to make a full effort in the Delaware Basin, which is an area I worked previously on the minerals side. We found some excellent opportunities in the core, and now we’re just adding to that position.

We see so much opportunity in the Delaware that it is hard to look elsewhere when you consider the well level rate of returns and the number of wells with very low breakeven costs that can be drilled per section. Although the Delaware Basin is our primary focus, we have looked at several basins in which to operate. We like the Rockies—we have some non-ops in the Powder River right now and are interested in similar investments in the Midland Basin.

Investor Are you seeing any challenges in this current environment?

Sabia No. I think that it is more of a factor of where we are in our life cycle as a company. We are not seeing a lack of competition due to lower oil prices as a result. It is very competitive in the Delaware Basin right now, perhaps more so than at $100 oil four years ago. A lot of what you see is a flight to quality, and the Delaware Basin is arguably the highest-quality rock in the country.

Investor What are some lessons learned from the military that you use in your career?

Sabia You often come across challenges big and small, and it is not about what those challenges are, it is about how quickly you can react and overcome them. Getting up every day and working as hard as you can. That is what I learned to do in the military, and that is what we’re trying to do here. Each and every day I focus on how we can make our organization better.

Investor Who are your mentors?

Sabia Robert Gaudin by far is the biggest mentor in my career. He’s changed the trajectory of my career. I had some great mentors during my time at Goldman Sachs—Scott Belveal and Steve Torbeck. They were both in the military previously as well. Prior to that in the Army, my commander in Iraq was Drew Conover. He taught me what hard work and perseverance are. Every day I strive to work with as much passion as he did.