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Devon Butler
CA BOCES Pre-Engineering Graduate
Operations Analysis Engineer
Boardwalk Pipelines

I am currently an Operations Analysis Engineer for Boardwalk Pipelines out of Houston, Texas, where I have been living for the last three and a half years. Boardwalk operates natural gas and liquid natural gas pipelines throughout the Central and Gulf Coast regions of the United States while also utilizing several storage fields that the company owns in the areas. In 2019, Boardwalk’s interstate pipeline transported approximately 2.9 trillion cubic feet of natural gas through nearly 14,000 miles of pipe while providing up to 200 billion cubic feet of natural gas storage and over 30 million barrels of liquid natural gas storage for our customers. My team manages the daily operation of the pipelines and storage caverns by modeling throughputs on the pipeline system, volumes in and out of storage, monitoring gas quality being delivered to customers, tracking fuel burn rate at our compressor stations, and also scheduling planned and unplanned maintenance throughout the system while determining the volumetric impact for each maintenance. Communication is a key component to being in the Operations Analysis group as we run studies and coordinate with Boardwalk’s Commercial Team, Customer Service, Gas Control, and Field Operators daily.

After high school, I began my journey into the oil and gas industry by earning a Bachelor of Science in Petroleum Engineering at Marietta College, graduating in 2017. From there, I moved to Houston to begin working for Weatherford International as a Measuring/Logging While Drilling Field Engineer. I gained great working experience throughout South Texas and North Louisiana running down-hole measurement tools that provided us with real time directional drilling and formation quality data. I held this position for two years before choosing a more stable lifestyle with Operations Analysis at Boardwalk.

However, before any of this I attended both Friendship Central School and Project Lead The Way at Cattaraugus-Allegany BOCES. At BOCES, I was able to become a more well-rounded person by joining new classmates and teachers that brought different views and learning styles while also being able to relate with me, being from the same area. While there certainly was a curriculum and we did take Physics class at PLTW, the class was also very self-driven as we came up with our own projects for the course that branched off from the things we learned. Project Lead The Way also provided access to the tool called Inventor, which is a design software similar to CAD where we could design projects in a 3D model, print the projects in plastic via a 3D printer, and even have our final project get produced out of a CNC Machine in the classroom. I personally designed the head of a golf putter for my final project. BOCES provided me with an awesome experience during my final two years of high school that helped me decide that I wanted to become an engineer. I am very grateful for my time there as well as my former classmates and teacher.