50 Years of Unifying the West

The year was 1974. Skittles were hitting the shelves and the Rubik’s cube was puzzling people for the first time. Across the country, people were waiting hours in gas lines in the aftermath of an Arab oil embargo, and in our nation’s capital lawmakers were enacting poor policies in response. In Denver, a group of small- to mid-sized business leaders in the oil and natural gas industry gathered in an “emergency session” on February 4th at the Denver Petroleum Club.

Their urgent mission was to formulate ideas on making meaningful change on a host of federal policies facing the industry in the West. They wished “to consider action which would support industry efforts on pending congressional legislation and to discuss forming an association which could provide continuing support from such efforts, regionally and nationally, from the growing number of independents in this region.”
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Four days later, an open meeting took place on February 8th at 3:00 pm to see if there was enough support, and the Independent Petroleum Association of the Mountain States (IPAMS) was born. Later, in 2010, the association was renamed Western Energy Alliance.

Our association has seen a lot of change over the years and been touched by a lot of great leaders who’ve made us into the formidable organization it is today.

The first president of the board, Richard Cullen, was sworn in and Executive Director Frank Lee was hired in 1975, when Jaws was the box office hit. Since then, our bold organization has been achieving meaningful changes on federal issues to sustain environmentally responsible exploration and production of oil and natural gas in the West.