Paul Parsons is a lecturer at the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin. He teaches Oil and Gas Accounting and Sustainability for the Master in Professional Accounting program.

Parsons is also founder and director of Energy Training Resources (ETR), an organization that offers live and online courses for the oil and gas industry covering operational, commercial, accounting, and sustainability topics. He started the company in 2007 after observing an industry need for improved educational resources.

Prior to founding ETR, Parsons worked for 24 years with Occidental Petroleum Corp. (Oxy) in a variety of domestic and international accounting and finance roles. His last position was divisional CFO for Oxy’s Permian Basin operation. One of the responsibilities of that role was to lead the professional development of the division’s accounting/finance employees, which led to his entrepreneurial interest in industry education.

Parsons earned a Bachelor of Business Administration in accounting from Texas McCombs and an MBA in finance from the University of Houston. He is a CPA licensed in Texas and holds a certificate in professional land management from UT Petroleum Extension. He is or has been involved with a variety of industry organizations including the American Petroleum Institute, COPAS, the Independent Petroleum Association of America, the Houston Producers Forum, and the Association of International Energy Negotiators.