Daniel J. Rice IV, 33
Chief Executive Officer
Toby Z. Rice, 32
President and Chief Operating Officer
Derek A. Rice, 29
Vice President, Exploration and Geology
Brothers who became the “wonder triplets” of the oil and gas industry earlier this year after taking their family-owned, Marcellus-focused E&P company public with a $994 million IPO in January. Daniel Rice: “Derek’s a geologist, I’m oil and gas finance and Toby’s a petroleum engineer and head of land. We just complement each other really well with no real overlap of our strengths, so we all defer to the others’ areas of expertise.”
Accomplishments: Managed growth from a small firm with approximately 40 employees in 2012 to more than 150 employees today. Daniel Rice: “Being able to manage growth into a larger organization, that’s probably been our biggest accomplishment. We were able to get the company running as a going-concern entity, planning for the next five to 10 years, and not just thinking about the next three to six months, all of which made the decision to take the company public a much easier one to make.”
Started “Marcellus Mania,” an annual community fundraiser for volunteer fire departments in Washington County, Pennsylvania (last year the event raised
$100,000). Created an enrichment fund for Belmont County, Ohio. “We’re especially big supporters of the communities where we operate.”
On being good neighbors: Toby Rice: “I think one thing that’s really helped grow this company has been placing emphasis on taking care of our partners’ priorities over ourselves. One thing with Rice is that the focus for growth has been on repeat business with landowners. The way we look at it is, if we continue to give them a great experience with Rice Energy, the repeat business a landowner can give is telling their neighbor about Rice Energy. And that’s really helped give us the opportunity to extend within this basin.”
Goals: Daniel Rice: “One of our near-term goals is to grow operated production to more than a billion cubic feet per day. Which is a pretty lofty goal for most companies, but we think it’s a pretty realistic goal for us.”
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