The 80s bust left a generational gap in oil and gas that John H. Campbell III is eager to fill. He’s on his way: In February, Carne­lian Energy Capital Management LP committed $50 million to Campbell and his partners, Lupe Carrillo and Brian Zwart, for Percussion Petroleum LLC, their E&P start-up.

Campbell grew up in The Wood­lands, Texas, and matriculated at Tulane University in mechani­cal engineering. After Hurricane Katrina, he transferred to the Univer­sity of Texas at Austin to major in petroleum engineering. During the summers, on the advice of his father, John H. Campbell Jr., a manag­ing director with Quantum Energy Partners, he began gaining the exposure to the industry that would be vital to his long-term plan to be an entrepreneur: from work in Smith Bits’ factory to internships with Burlington Resources Corp., offshore Louisiana, Energy XXI Ltd. and El Paso Corp.

Campbell joined El Paso full-time in 2009 as the Haynesville Shale took off. He finished up the train­ing program as a drilling engineer in the Eagle Ford Shale. As unconventional resource activity moved into factory mode, he elected to focus on conventional drilling and development, joining Quantum Resources Energy LP, and was given management of assets around Midland, Texas. After six months, the senior engineer he had been assisting departed, and Camp­bell assumed responsibility for West Texas. In 2013, after a company reorganization, he assumed MidCon and, later, Ark-La-Tex asset management duties.

After Quantum’s merger with Breitburn Energy Partners LP in November 2014, Campbell joined start-up Rockcliff Energy LLC. It was backed by $700 million in private equity from Quantum Energy Partners and co-investors. Last October, Rockcliff sold the position it had built up in North Louisi­ana’s Terryville Field complex to Memorial Resource Development Corp., and Campbell and his part­ners formed Percussion. He named it after the drill­ing method used in the early days of the industry, to reflect the company’s emphasis on legacy conven­tional assets.

Investor Lots of teams are in pursuit of funding. How did you differentiate Percussion?

Campbell Our experience is different than many others of our generation, because we have worked conventional plays. A 40-year-old well in West Texas is a lot different than a brand new unconventional well. We wanted to see what we could do on a conventional, smaller-scale, acquire-and-exploit strategy. Many teams are seeking $100- to $300 million in commit­ments and are chasing the same deals. Our deal size is smaller and less marketed most times.

Also, we wanted a start-up culture and lifestyle. The founders of Carne­lian, Tomas Ackerman and Daniel Goodman, have that culture.

Investor What’s your strategy?

Campbell We have built an asset acquisition team that can perform thorough, complicated evaluations quickly. We’re focused on where we’ve operated successfully in the past. If it touches Texas, we’ll look at it; our primary targets are the Permian and Ark-La-Tex, and we have consid­erable experience in the MidCon.

We pride ourselves on relation­ships. I learned the value of rela­tionships from many of the leaders I have worked for. You have to pay it forward in business development, because you never know when it will pay off. I just got back from a trip to Dallas that was basically to say hello to people—that’s where build­ing relationships starts.

Investor Any surprises so far?

Campbell Even at these smaller values, the players are sophisticated. They know what they are doing.

West Texas continues to amaze me with its values. The deal flow has been a little slower because of oil price volatility; some people have lost the excitement to sell. I’ve learned more in the past seven months than in my whole career.

Investor Best advice from your father?

Campbell I’m always asking the older generation about how this cycle will play out. Many say they don’t know, because in the ’80s, they didn’t have all this capital wanting to be in oil and gas.

My father is an old-school, Alabama guy. His advice is to keep your head down and work hard. You have to outwork other people. I’ve made one of his sayings my motto: “If it were easy, everyone would do it.

This is a very hard business. There’s a lot of risk, liability and things that can go wrong. But there’s a lot that can go right.

Investor How is the younger generation changing the industry?

Campbell It’s adding to innovation and thinking outside the box. If you look at the IT world and others, my age group is running many different industries. I think we’ll see younger people stepping into influential roles. I don’t know too many petro­leum engineers in their forties. It’s a great opportu­nity to take responsibility early.

We’ve seen deterioration in wealth in this down­turn, but I think we’ll also see creation of wealth from different individuals.

The IT industry is moving in with its technology and software to improve oil and gas. The people who can survive at $42 oil [the price at press time] are going to be those who can adapt.