GEO's Origin Story

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GEO was founded in 2019 by Jamie Beard, an energy and regulatory attorney, energy entrepreneur, and lifelong geothermal advocate. Jamie teamed up with Bob Metcalfe, an internet and entrepreneurship icon at the University of Texas at Austin, with the goal of building a thriving geothermal ecosystem in Texas, and within the oil and gas industry itself.

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GEO was formed with the support of a $1M grant from the United States Department of Energy Geothermal Technologies Office, and launched a demand pull innovation exercise aimed at commercializing extreme temperature drilling technologies and other geothermal relevant innovations from UT Austin's world leading petroleum engineering and geoscience centers, and recruiting UT Austin faculty, staff and alumni into geothermal.

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GEO's mission when launched in 2019 was to leverage the legacy of oil and gas research and development at the University of Texas at Austin and in the State of Texas at large to enable economical drilling for geothermal energy anywhere in the world. The GEO concept gained quick traction, not only with faculty and research centers at UT Austin, but across Texas and beyond, quickly becoming an internationally recognized leader in geothermal ecosystem building, venture creation, and advocacy.

 

In 2020, GEO launched the 'Pivot - From Hydrocarbons to Heat' conference series to bring together its quickly growing global community of innovators, entrepreneurs, oil and gas veterans, and funding entities to share knowledge and bleeding edge ideas on how to scale and support geothermal.

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In 2021, GEO formed the TGI consortium, leveraging partnerships formed during its demand-pull innovation exercise at UT Austin to build a state-wide partnership of industry and institutional partners interested in building the future of geothermal energy.

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