Necrology

Joseph Poyer Deyo Hull, Jr. '52

Jan. 21, 1931-Feb. 21, 2023

Joseph Poyer Deyo Hull, Jr. ’52, P’87,’91 died in Lakewood, Colo., on Feb. 21, 2023. Born on Jan. 21, 1931, in Tulsa, Okla., he came to Hamilton from Tulsa Central High School. His father, Joseph P. D. Hull, Class of 1913, was a geologist, and so it is perhaps not surprising that Joe majored in geology as well as in mathematics on the Hill.

He was a member of the Emerson Literary Society and, during his junior year, of the Interfraternity Council. He was on the track team all four years. Inducted into the Block “H” Club as a junior, he was the secretary-treasurer for his class that same year. During his final two years he was in the Geology Club. As a senior, he was on the staff of The Hamiltonian.

Having compiled a distinguished academic record in high school, Joe was similarly accomplished at Hamilton. He received the Fayerweather Prize Scholarship at the end of his first year for having earned the highest grade point average in his class. That same year, he tied with another student for the McKinney Speaking Prize. As a junior, he won the Tompkins Prize in mathematics, an award given to two members of that class who excel on an examination based on three years of study in that field. By the time he graduated with honors in geology, Joe had been inducted into both the Society of Sigma Xi and Phi Beta Kappa.

Aided by the two National Science Foundation fellowships, Joe began graduate study in geology at Columbia University, completing his master’s degree in 1953 and his doctorate in 1955. The title of his dissertation was “Guadalupian Sandstone Facies of the Delaware Basin, Texas, and Mexico,” a study that served in part to prepare him for his career as a petroleum geologist. In the summer of 1953, between degrees, he worked for the Humble Oil & Refining Co. in Midland, Texas. Two years later, doctorate in hand, he returned to Humble to begin his career.

In 1958, he left Humble to become an exploration geologist for Kerr-McGee Oil Industries in Oklahoma City, where he worked until 1961. By then a district geologist, Joe opened an office in Pittsburgh to serve as the base of operations for oil exploration in the Central Appalachians. In Pittsburgh he met Renate Kranz, who had immigrated from Germany in 1956. They married on May 27, 1962. They moved to Calgary, Alberta, in 1969, when Joe was appointed manager of Kerr-McGee’s Canadian explorations.

In 1975, he left Kerr-McGee to head up the Impel Energy Corp., a newly formed subsidiary of the Great Western United Corp., in which Bunker and Herbert Hunt of Dallas, owned a controlling share. Based in Denver, Impel’s goal was to uncover reserves of oil, natural gas, and coal in the Rocky Mountains. Other companies had by then discovered new energy sources in Colorado, Idaho, and Wyoming, and Joe was convinced that elsewhere in those, and neighboring, states were previously unexplored locations where the geology looked promising for significant energy reserves.

Joe, Renate, and their two children made their home in the Denver suburb of Golden. After leaving Impel in 1980, he worked for a series of other oil exploration companies — Paige Petroleum, Ensource, and Wolf Energy Co. — most frequently as a vice president for exploration. He retired from Wolf Energy in 1990 but continued as a consultant who mapped potential oil fields in Colorado.

During his career, Joe served the geology profession by his active participation in the Rocky Mountain Association of Geologists, including a term as its president in 1982. When, in 1988, he received the association’s Distinguished Service Award, it was noted that his service spanned “all levels of involvement from committee member to officer,” resulting in “significant contributions every year since [his move] to Denver” in 1975. Also a longtime member of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, for a time he served on its advisory council.

In truth, Joe’s life after his years with Wolf Energy could hardly be termed a “retirement.” Beyond mapping oil fields, he lent his expertise to his classmate Jack Bakken ’52, the only other geology major in their class, by assessing the value of various oil and gas properties for Jack’s company, Business Appraisal Associates. He also developed an interest in his family’s genealogy, compiled several iterations of its history, and sent copies of his self-published work to distant (and in some cases newly discovered) relatives.

He and Renate traveled extensively, often to locations of geological interest: to Iceland, where the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates are joined; to the Atlas Mountains of Morocco, created at the same time the ancestral Appalachian Mountains appeared and the result of a collision between the African and North American plates; to the African Rift Valley, slowly widening as the African plate rotates from the Eurasian plate. Other destinations included Mount Etna, the Andes, India, Japan, Thailand, and Cambodia. Closer to home, the couple hiked and skied cross-country in the Rocky Mountains.

Joe was very supportive of Hamilton. Both his children attended the College, and he volunteered to promote the 175th Anniversary Campaign, served on both the Alumni Association and the Alumni Council, was a member of his class’s reunion planning and gift committees, and was a Career Center volunteer. He contributed to the Hamilton Fund for 31 years.

In his 40th reunion yearbook, Joe observed that “going to Hamilton after high school in Oklahoma exposed me to new cultures and lifestyles. The Hamilton experience fostered a long-term outlook on life. Appreciation of the past helps us understand the present and consider the future.” He added: “I would do it all again.”

Joseph P. D. Hull, Jr. is survived by his wife and his children, Thomas D. Hull ’87 and Karen Sanders Hull ’91.

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