During his 45 years in the oil patch, William J. (Bill) Barrett has managed to put a new spin on an old adage: if at first you succeed, try to make that success bigger the next time. Working for Inexco Oil Co. during 1966-69, the Topeka, Kansas-born geologist was credited with discovering the giant Madden and Hilight fields in the Rockies. This helped create rapid growth for that Denver producer, which was later sold to LL&E. Then in 1970, shortly after Rainbow Resources Corp. went public at 50 cents a share, Barrett joined that Mile High City operator as vice president and director of exploration; in 1978, the firm was sold for $19 per share to Tulsa-based The Williams Cos. At the height of the boom in 1981, the veteran Rocky Mountain oil and gas hunter, with a master's degree in geology from Kansas State University, founded Barrett Energy Co. Two years later, the Denver firm went public on the Nasdaq as Barrett Resources Corp. It had seven employees and nearly no reserves, daily production or annual revenues. But on August 3, 2001, The Williams Cos. acquired a dramatically different Barrett Resources. At that point, the then-NYSE-traded firm had 265 employees, reserves of 2.1 trillion cubic feet of gas equivalent (Tcfe), daily production of 341 million cubic feet equivalent, annual revenues of $423 million and a stock value of $73.32 per share, or $2.8 billion. Time to pack it in and call it a dynamite career? At first blush, it looked that way. Barrett had always wanted to relax more with Louise, his wife of 53 years, and spend more time with his four sons, three daughters and 16 grandchildren. He promptly did, traveling to Africa, Italy and Hawaii. However, last October, sons Fred and Terry, also geologists, came to their father with an idea. They wanted to start a new-generation Barrett energy company. And they had behind them a following of former Barrett Resources employees who felt the same way. For the 73-year-old geoscientist, it was an offer he couldn't refuse. "I love geology, and you just don't quit that," says Barrett. "And the fact that Fred and Terry were so committed to this idea clinched the deal." Wasting no time, Barrett last fall stepped up to the plate as chairman and chief executive officer of the new, privately held Bill Barrett Corp., while assembling a team of experts to steer the Denver-based upstream company. The team includes J. Frank Keller, vice chairman and chief operating officer; Robert W. (Bob) Howard, chief financial officer; Kurt Reinecke, vice president of exploration, southern division; Roy Roux, vice president, geophysics; Hunt Walker, land manager; and Dominic Bazile II, vice president, operations. As for sons Fred and Terry, they are president and vice president of exploration, northern division, respectively. "What all these people have in common is that they've worked together for 15 to 20 years," says Barrett. "Also, they're experts in the key Rocky Mountain gas regions on which this company will focus-the Piceance-Uinta basins in western Colorado and eastern Utah; the Powder River, Wind River and Greater Green River basins in Wyoming and Montana; and the Raton Basin in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico." Why these basins? "It's the region we know best, where we've had our greatest successes in the past, and where there are still enormous recoverable gas reserves in place," says Barrett. Indeed, it's estimated that the remaining recoverable gas-reserve potential in the Rockies is 388 Tcf-of which 23 Tcf is in the Wyoming portion of the Powder River Basin and another 31 Tcf is in the Piceance Basin. With this panoply of potential on its plate, the company knew last fall it was going to need a good deal more than the capital available from its own management, families and friends. So the start-up turned to the private-equity market, with Petrie Parkman & Co. and First Albany acting as the placement agents. Not surprisingly, that market eagerly embraced the proven, highly successful oil and gas finders. By early this year, Bill Barrett Corp. had an aggregate $255 million in private-equity financing led by Warburg Pincus. Others in the group were Goldman Sachs Capital Partners and JPMorgan Partners, followed by State Farm Insurance, the Colorado Public Employees Retirement Association (PERA) and Palantir Capital. The total all-in financing and capital commitment behind Bill Barrett Corp., including equity stakes by its own management: $282.5 million. "One of the reasons we were able to secure as much backing as we needed is that our investors saw, as we did, that the market timing was right to make gas-prone acquisitions," explains Barrett. "Last October, gas prices were averaging $1.74; this past February, $1.94. At the same time, everyone believed the future was very bright for gas prices-not $9 to $10 like we saw in January 2001, but an annual average of $3 to $3.50 going forward." Bill Barrett Corp. quickly pounced on acquisition opportunities in the Rockies. This March, it completed a $73-million purchase of Wind River Basin gas properties in Wyoming that included the Cave Gulch/Waltman Field complex. Proven gas reserves in the package are 55 billion cubic feet (Bcf), but the exploration upside could be multiples of that. Then in late April, the company closed on an $8-million package of gas properties in the Uinta Basin with 50- to 150-Bcf potential. More recently, the producer has been working to acquire for $10 million an exploratory/development package of properties in the Montana portion of the Wind River Basin. Says Barrett, "I want to see us exposed to company-maker projects-those with reserve targets between 500 Bcf and 1 Tcf. This latest acquisition in the Wind River, when concluded, could be that type project." Following the same business model that made his predecessor company so successful, Barrett expects his new E&P entry to achieve a 20% annual growth rate in production and reserves, finding costs via the drillbit in the range of 45- to 75 cents per thousand cubic feet, annual reserve replacement of 250%, and more than a 20% rate of return (ROR) on all acquisitions-with exploratory upside providing the potential for greater than a 30% annual ROR. Might Bill Barrett Corp. eventually go public? "That's a very real possibility," says its helmsman. "The attitude of our people is that we can be bigger than Barrett Resources. With that mindset, we'd certainly be in a position to do an initial public offering within the next 18 to 24 months, assuming our backers approve and the market environment is right." Jeffrey A. Harris, senior managing director for Warburg Pincus in New York, says his firm's interest in the start-up was prompted by the quality and experience of its management team, the leadership of Bill Barrett and the attractiveness of the Rockies as a gas province. "We're interested in expanding our gas orientation in E&P companies today, and this team has done a good job over the years of being able to find large quantities of gas." Harris, who sits on the board of Bill Barrett Corp., agrees that the company has the potential to go public in the next few years. Christopher C. Behrens, a partner at JPMorgan Partners in New York, notes that the company's team has a record of finding and producing gas at very attractive rates of return for shareholders. "With the upside we see for gas, this is a very interesting time in the gas-price cycle to be purchasing assets and properties from very willing, large corporate sellers, which in the post-Enron environment are looking to clean up their balance sheets and focus more on their core operations." Behrens points out that the balanced company has some very interesting return upside from opportunities on the exploration side, while its producing properties provide solid, steady cash flow. "So while an IPO may be an option for Barrett down the road, one doesn't have to be done for investors to achieve their return requirements." What keeps Bill Barrett chasing the next find? "When it comes to geology, the search never ends. Neither does the learning in this business. There's always something new."