The President of Laris, John M. Stafford, is an experienced oil and gas executive, oil and gas attorney and petroleum geologist with 43 years of diverse experience in the oil & gas industry. For the past 20 years he served as President of Laris Oil & Gas, LLC, (a private E&P company).  Prior to his role at Laris, he served as Vice President and General Counsel of Patina Oil & Gas Corporation (“Patina”).  As General Counsel, he was ultimately responsible for all legal matters for the company within a 9 state area of operations. Patina was a publicly traded oil & gas company on the NYSE that was acquired by Noble Energy for $4.9 billion.  He also served as Vice President and Secretary of Elysium Energy, L.L.C. (a Patina joint venture).  Prior to joining Patina, Mr. Stafford was in private practice for 5 years with several large (200+ attorney) law firms with experience as an oil and gas transactional attorney and as an environmental attorney. 

He was also a founding member, EVP and General Counsel of Vistar Oil Texas LLC (“Vistar”).  Vistar drilled three horizontal wells targeting the Buda Lime Formation in South Texas using underbalanced drilling and completion techniques. Two of the three wells had un-stimulated IP rates in excess of 3,000 bopd. 

Prior to becoming an attorney, Mr. Stafford was an exploration and development geologist with ARCO for more than 13 years.  His technical geologic experience includes the on- and off-shore basins of California, the Rocky Mountain region and Gulf Coast.  In addition to being licensed to practice law in two states, Mr. Stafford is a Registered Professional Geologist in the State of Wyoming.  Mr. Stafford received his B.S. degree in Geology from Syracuse University, an M.S. degree in Geological Oceanography from Texas A&M University, and his J.D. degree from the University of Denver.