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In 2020, Herb Vogel (MechEngr’82) was appointed president and chief executive officer of SM Energy, a public S&P 600 company headquartered in Denver with oil and gas production operations primarily in Texas. Vogel has more than 38 years of experience in the energy business. He started his career with ARCO Alaska and then joined BP upon their acquisition of ARCO in 2000, serving in roles of increasing responsibility in engineering, exploration, asset development, business unit leadership, marketing and trading. These roles involved moves to Anchorage, Alaska; Midland, Texas; Jakarta, Indonesia; London; Madrid; and Houston before he retired from BP in 2012 and joined SM Energy. A career highlight was the discovery of the Vorwata gas field in Papua, Indonesia, in 1996 and the subsequent sanction of the Tangguh LNG project in 2005.

Vogel was raised in Los Alamos, New Mexico, and as an avid skier and soccer player, decided to attend CU Boulder. He met his wife, Karen, in 1980 when both were residents of Libby Hall. They married in 1987 and are the proud parents of Steven (MechEngr’12) and Austin. Karen’s parents also graduated from CU Boulder in the 1950s.

Vogel was a founding member of the Mechanical Engineering Strategic Advisory Board (MESAB) in 2012. Since then, he has provided consistently high-quality advice to the department leadership. In 2016, Vogel also joined the College of Engineering Advisory Council, providing the same valuable insight and advice to the college that he has provided to mechanical engineering over the years.

Vogel’s gift of time to the department and college is matched by gifts of financial support. For many years, the Vogels have been involved in charitable activities. They established three faculty fellowships and two graduate student fellowships, which provide a means of stability and salary support that is critical to retention at CU, as well as to provide funding for faculty and students to pursue their research and educational goals.