Executive Council

International Tax Partner serving multinational corporations in a variety of industries including energy/power, shipping, refining, manufacturing, oil field services, software/technology and manufacturing/distribution. Significant experience serving private equity firms with respect to fund level structuring, diligence/structuring for acquisitions and dispositions of portfolio companies, and tax efficient financing.

Mr. Amend has over 40 years of experience in the oil and gas industry in exploration, production and operations and previously held positions at Texas Oil & Gas Corp. and Hamman Oil & Refining Co.  In 1987, Mr. Amend formed Amend Energy Co. which developed, owned, operated and explored for oil and gas in Texas and Louisiana.  Following the sale of Amend Energy, he joined the privately held company of Houston Energy, L.P. and currently serves as its Sr. Executive Vice President.  He is a member of the Houston Association of Petroleum Landmen, the American Association of Professional Landmen, and the AAPL OCS Committee.  Mr. Amend currently serves on the McCombs Energy Initiative Executive Council.  Mr. Amend graduated from the University of Texas with a BBA in Petroleum Land Management.

Luke Brandenberg is a Director with oil and gas private equity firm EnCap Investments, L.P. where he focuses on investment management and business development.  Luke sits on the board of several EnCap portfolio companies as well as the Highland Park Young Life Committee and the Executive Council of the McCombs Energy Initiative at The University of Texas at Austin.

Prior to joining EnCap in August 2010, Luke spent three years working in the Energy Investment Banking Group at Raymond James & Associates, where he focused on public capital raises, restructuring and M&A advisory work within the upstream, midstream and oilfield service sectors. 

Luke holds Bachelor of Business Administration degrees in Business Honors and Finance from The University of Texas at Austin, where he graduated with honors in 2007.

Stephen has over 22 years of energy investment banking experience.  He has completed numerous transactions within the upstream, oilfield service and midstream sub-sectors of the energy industry.  His career began as an Associate in 1996 at Bear Stearns in the NY office, he moved to the Dallas office in late 1998 and was promoted to Senior Managing Director in 2007.  In early 2008, when JP Morgan acquired Bear Stearns, he joined JP Morgan's energy investment banking group in Dallas where he helped start their midstream investment banking franchise.  In 2015, Stephen moved to the Dallas office of Raymond James where he helped build their midstream franchise until September 2018.  He received his BBA in Finance from The University of Texas at Austin in 1991 and his MBA in Finance from The Wharton School of The University of Pennsylvania in 1996.  He was a four year Letterman on the Longhorn Football Team.   

Mr. Downie has over 24 years of investment experience and co-founded Tailwater Capital in January 2013. At Tailwater, Mr. Downie’s primary responsibilities include deal sourcing, execution, and monitoring of the Firm’s investments as well as management of the Firm. He currently serves as a Director of Southcross Energy Holdings, Southcross Energy Partners, TexStar Logistics, Align Midstream Partners, Petro Waste Environmental, and Pivotal Petroleum Partners. Prior to co-founding Tailwater Capital, Mr. Downie was a Partner with HM Capital and served on the Investment Committee. He joined HM Capital from Rice, Sangalis Toole and Wilson, a mezzanine private equity firm, where he was an Associate. Prior to Rice, Sangalis Toole and Wilson, Mr. Downie was an Associate in the Equity Trading Group with Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, responsible for energy and transportation. He earned both a BBA and MBA from the University of Texas at Austin.

Mr. Edwards has over 22 years of energy private equity investment experience, and is currently a Partner at White Deer Energy, an energy-focused private equity firm based in Houston, Texas.  As a member of White Deer’s investment committee, Mr. Edwards helps direct the firm’s investment efforts across the upstream, midstream and oilfield services sectors, and currently serves as a Director of Flogistix, Global Petro Storage Group, Cust-O-Fab Holdings, Quannah Panhandle, Axios Industrial Group, Extract Production Services, and Midstream Texas.  Prior to becoming a partner at White Deer, Mr. Edwards spent 13 years at First Reserve Corporation, one of the world’s largest energy-focused private equity firms, where as a member of the firm’s investment committee he had responsibility for the firm’s oilfield services investing efforts.  Mr. Edwards began his career as an Analyst with Simmons & Company International, and earned a BBA from the University of Texas at Austin.

Brett Hauser has helped shape the electric vehicle (EV) industry by advocating for open standards and supporting the broad-based deployment of EV charging infrastructure to enable the transition to electrified transportation.  As CEO of Greenlots, a global provider of EV charging and grid management software, Hauser is leading the company through strategic investments, market expansion, and scaling new product and services with some of the largest utilities, municipalities, cities, and automakers.

Hauser spent more than 25 years in strategic and financial planning, product management and business development roles.  As a private equity investor, Hauser was responsible for restructuring various multi-million-dollar transactions in telematics, mobile resource management, telecommunications and natural resources.   Hauser currently sits on the Board of Directors for Greenlots, the Alliance of Transportation Electrification, and the Open Charge Alliance.  Hauser earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Finance from the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin.

Mr. Rob L. Jones has been Director of Spire Inc. since Feburary 22, 2016. Mr. Jones served as a Co-Head of Bank of America Merrill Lynch Commodities from 2007 to June 2012. Mr. Jones held various positions with Merrill Lynch & Co. from 1993 to 2007, including Managing Director, Co-Head of Merrill Lynch's Global Energy and Power Investment Banking Group and is the Founder of Merrill Lynch Commodity Partners. From 1980 to 1985, he served as a Financial Associate with the oil and gas exploration and production division of Sun Company, primarily based in Dallas, Texas. From September 2012 to June 2014, he served as an Executive in Residence at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin (McCombs). He has been a Director of The Laclede Group, Inc. since February 22, 2016. He has been a Director of Shell Midstream Partners GP LLC, the General Partner of Shell Midstream Partners, L.P. since October 29, 2014.

He is an Advisory Board Member of Climax Global Energy, Inc. He served as a Lead Independent Director of Susser Petroleum Partners GP LLC and Sunoco GP LLC from September 2013 to August 29, 2014. He served as a Director of Susser Petroleum Partners Gp Llc since September 2012. He serves as a Member of Advisory Council at Red McCombs School of Business. He is a Life Member of the Dean’s Advisory Council of the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin. He served as a Director of Susser Petroleum Partners Gp Llc since September 2013. He continues as a Guest Lecturer and speaker at McCombs. Mr. Jones is a graduate of the University of Texas, where he received a Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance with Honors and an MBA with High Honors and was a Sord Scholar.

Sean has over 20 years of energy industry experience and is currently the President and CFO of Hibernia Resources III, LLC in Houston, TX.  Hibernia is a portfolio company of Natural Gas Partners and is focused on developing unconventional resources across their asset base in the Central Midland Basin with core operations in Upton and Reagan counties. Prior to Hibernia, he was a partner in multiple private equity backed upstream ventures (Plantation Petroleum and Empresa) beginning in 2001.  The majority of Sean’s career has been focused in the Permian Basin but was also involved in the development and divestment of three large assets in the North Louisiana Haynesville and South Texas Eagle Ford.  Prior experiences include various roles with Koch Industries and Enron. Sean holds a BS in Engineering and an MBA from The University of Texas at Austin.

Mr. Lange graduated from the University of Texas Business in May 1985. I knew I wanted to be in the oil business as a Landman. In 1985 that meant the Oil &Gas crash left very few job opportunities. I was fortunate to find field land work from 1985-1990. I traveled Monday through Friday to small town courthouses and did title checks using court records. The best part of my job was the interaction with landowners. Much of my success in the O&G business today is based on what on learned in the field and from the contacts I made during those early days. I worked in house for Chevron for seven years to learn that side of the business and in 1997 became an Independent.

My startup experience began with North Central Oil Company, where I bought leases retaining an ORRI. From North Central, I took my ideas and overrides and partnered with a group of Aggies and Encap Investments to form Laredo Energy, where we successfully drilled natural gas wells. All the naturals gas wells were drilled in south Texas. My partners and I successfully developed and sold three partnerships, Laredo I, Laredo II and Laredo III. The Laredo companies sold for approximately $867,000.00 and averaged 5.1X and 198.36% ROI. Today I am currently in another partnership (still with Aggies) and rely on the experience and education I received from my time at the University of Texas.

Christopher Mize is Managing Director, Chairman of Energy Americas in Morgan Stanley’s Investment Banking Division. Mr. Mize has 26 years of energy investment banking experience, primarily in Houston.  He joined Morgan Stanley in its Houston office in November 2014. Prior to that, he worked as a Managing Director and Co-Head of the Houston office of Greenhill & Co. from 2009.

He was also Co-Head of Bank of America and of Merrill Lynch’s Energy & Power practice. He received his MBA in finance from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and BA from Southern Methodist University.

Information coming soon.

Josh is the Partner in charge of the Complex Financial Reporting group of Opportune, including oversight of the firm’s Denver and Tulsa offices. Josh has 20 years of experience in providing clients across the energy spectrum with technical research, capital markets and SEC reporting assistance. Josh and his team of over 30 professionals have led all financial statement and disclosure aspects of the IPO process for over two dozen clients within the E&P, midstream, oilfield service and power sectors. In addition, he assists over 100 clients annually with researching, concluding and reporting for the most complex transactions affecting their businesses. Prior to joining Opportune, Josh worked in the audit and global energy markets department with Deloitte & Touche, where he managed the audits of regulated gas and electric utilities, independent power producers, and energy trading entities.

Houston Simmons serves as Chief Financial Officer of Black Mountain Sand. Houston previously served as Vice President – Strategy for BOE Midstream, a crude logistics business with assets in the Bakken Shale. Houston began his career in Credit Suisse’s Global Energy Group as an Investment Banking Analyst. He left Credit Suisse to become the first Analyst of Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co.’s Investment Banking group where he worked for over seven years, most recently as a Vice President covering midstream oil and gas companies. During Houston’s eight year oil and gas investment banking career, he advised on 28 announced M&A transactions with aggregate value of over $20 billion. Houston is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin where he received a degree in Finance and Accounting.

Mr. Weinberg is Founder and Managing Director of Energy Capital Solutions with more than 30 years of investment banking experience for the energy industry.  Energy Capital Solutions is a Dallas-based investment banking and advisory firm focused on raising capital and M&A advisory for energy-related clients.  Prior to starting Energy Capital Solutions in 2001, Mr. Weinberg primarily advised public energy companies while a managing director with RBC Dain Rauscher. He has focused his career on covering exploration and production companies, oil service companies and other energy-related companies. Mr. Weinberg has led, generated and executed a wide variety of transactions, including 83 M&A transactions, 24 public equity offerings, 41 public & private debt financings and 67 private placements, along with various strategic advisory assignments. Mr. Weinberg received a B.B.A. from The University of Texas at Austin and a M.B.A. from Southern Methodist University.