Border Wall Builder Taps Top Oilfield Services Company Lawyer

One of several companies bidding on projects for the Trump administration’s U.S. border wall with Mexico has recruited a new general counsel from the struggling oil and gas industry.

Sterling Construction Co. Inc. announced Thursday its hire of Mark Wolf as general counsel, chief compliance officer, and corporate secretary. Wolf takes over at Sterling from Richard Chandler Jr., who left the Houston-based company in June.

“We are confident that Mark’s hands on and practical approach, coupled with his ability to design a legal strategy that is comprehensive yet agile, will drive us to become an even stronger organization,” Sterling CEO Joseph Cutillo said in a statement announcing the move.

Wolf most recently served as general counsel and corporate secretary at Houston-based U.S. Well Services Inc. He didn’t respond to a request for comment about his new role at Sterling, which comes a week after the U.S. Supreme Court delivered a 5-4 decision for President Donald Trump’s administration and allowing border wall building to continue.

Texas Sterling Construction Co., a Sterling subsidiary, was one of 12 contractors selected in May 2019 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to compete for $5 billion in federal government funds earmarked for construction projects along a key section of the U.S.-Mexico border. Sterling had previously been awarded a contract to create a prototype for a concrete border wall.

Chandler, a former Jones Day partner and Wolf’s predecessor as Sterling’s general counsel, was hired by the civil construction company in 2017 to replace longtime legal chief Roger Barzun. Chandler received nearly $1.2 million in total compensation from Sterling last year, according to the company’s 2019 proxy statement. Bloomberg data shows that Chandler owns more than $800,000 in Sterling stock.

Wolf comes to Sterling after 25 years in the energy industry, including nearly 16 years at FMC Technologies Inc., where he was a key lieutenant to the oil and gas equipment services company’s former general counsel and in-house innovator Jeffrey Carr. Wolf, who began his legal career at the law firm now known as Stinson, was deputy general counsel at FMC when it merged with France’s Technip SA in 2016.

That $13 billion combination saw Wolf become vice president of legal for the combined TechnipFMC plc’s $2 billion global surface technologies division. In January 2019, Wolf joined U.S Well Services as its general counsel following the fracking technology company’s $588 million sale to a publicly traded special purpose acquisition company backed by distressed investor David Matlin.

Rigzone, a trade publication for the oil and gas industry, reported in March that U.S. Well Services had reduced staff and slashed by 20% the salaries of certain key executives in order to cut costs. Wolf, who was not one of the company’s highest-paid executives in 2019, leaves U.S. Well Services as it and other energy companies cope with a spate of industry bankruptcies caused by plunging commodities prices.