Bob Burke - a remembrance

Bob Burke served as Editor-in-Chief ofOffshore for more than 20 years. To read the full obituary, turn to page 128.

If you look at an early copy of the magazine before Bob took over, that would be enough to convince you of the challenge he faced. It was at that time an amateurish, unorganized, poorly designed publication that just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Bob was the right man to take it and make it work.

About that same time, Bob took on an equally challenging project – he hired, a raw, inexperienced, untrained young journalist, and taught him more about magazine journalism than anyone before or since. And during the 41 years that I knew him as boss, mentor, and friend, I learned a great deal more than just how to write for a magazine.

In the late 60s when Bob took over, the offshore industry was in its infancy and the Gulf of Mexico was its playpen. Just a few years earlier, a rock ‘n’ roll singer named Antoine “Fats” Domino had been among a group bidding on a GoM offshore lease; Phillips Petroleum had made the first discovery in the North Sea; someone (Bruce Collipp of Shell) had designed something called a semisubmersible drilling rig; and a guy named George Herbert Walker Bush was founder and president of an offshore drilling company called Zapata Off-Shore.

It was a time of growth, innovation, and discovery, and Bob set out to makeOffshore the industry’s reporter, analyst, and spokesman. By nature he embraced the new, the daring, the adventurous, and in the next 20 years, the magazine took on his personality.

I never thought of Bob as a boss. He didn’t give orders so much as make suggestions and ask questions. He was open to suggestions and was willing to try just about anything that made sense and would serve the industry. It was no cliché to say that his door was always open. Sometimes there was a line outside that door, but once you got in you knew he would listen. He once told me that his highest priority for the staff was to be fair. He was that and more.

He would tell me an article I’d done was “great” when in fact it was adequate, at best. He knew good writing and, better yet, he knew how to teach it. When he edited copy, he wouldn’t allow a sour note to ruin your symphony. His changes taught me a better way.

He encouraged me to try new things, to attempt assignments that were a little outside my comfort zone. He sent me on overseas trips, put opportunities and challenges in front of me, made me feel I could reach a little higher. It was a lesson in mentoring that I would not forget.

Bob never met a stranger. I could walk into a room with him at some industry function – press conference, luncheon, reception, OTC event – and he knew everyone there or soon would. He wasn’t working the room. He simply cared about people, and it showed. His friendships encompassed the scope of the industry, personages great and small, including his competitors – another lesson learned for me.

When I began writing this column I knew it was impossible. I knew it just couldn’t do him justice. How could I describe something as complex and wonderful as a person, using what Joseph Conrad referred to as “old, tired words”?

And maybe that’s the best way to leave it. You’ve gotten a glance, a hint, a shadow of the man. That’s probably the best I can do.

When I think of Bob, I think of the words of John Donne: “No man is an island, entire of itself. Each is a piece of the continent, a part of the main…. Each man’s death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind. Therefore, send not to know for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee.”

That’s how I remember Bob. It’s how he lived. It’s what he was.

For me, the world is a lesser place without him.

To respond to articles in Offshore, or to offer articles for publication, contact the editor by email ([email protected]).