Awards & Scholarships

John T. Hayward was born in Liverpool, England in 1890. He graduated from Seafield Park Engineering College and received a diploma in Marine Engineering from Liverpool University. In 1909, he was apprenticed to a Belfast shipyard and saw the Titantic built. In 1911, he went to Rumania to superintend construction of a pipeline pumping station and, in 1914, he became drilling and production superintendent for the Rumania Consolidated Fields Co.'s Bana Moreni field.

In 1916-17, as a Lieutenant in the British Army, Mr. Hayward had the distasteful task of sabotaging the Rumanian refineries, oil wells and field installation, often behind enemy lines. He was later trapped in Bessarabia, but managed during the civil war to work his way across Russia and escape through Murmansk. He continued in military service, became a Captain, and was decorated with the British Military Cross by King George V.

He returned to Rumania in 1919 as Chief Engineer for Phoenix Oil and Transport Co. who, in 1927, sent him to the United States to purchase production and refining equipment. This visit decided Mr. Hayward to immigrate to this country and he became a citizen in 1931. From then to 1942, he was Chief Engineer for Barnsdall Oil Co. During this period, impatient with the delay and discomfort of waiting for tools to be pulled for coring, he conceived the continuous logging method, now known as mud logging.

Mr. Hayward joined the Navy Department in 1941 as Chief Scientist at the underwater warfare test station in Solomons, Md. Development of a secret underwater weapon earned him the Navy's Distinguished Civilian Service Award.

He returned to Barnsdall Oil Co. in 1945. In 1947, offshore drilling was begun and Mr. Hayward designed a self-contained mobile platform — the first of the submersible drilling barges.

A Member of AIME since 1927, Mr. Hayward is now semi-retired and lives in Clearwater, Florida.