Houston’S Bright Lights Lure Energy Industry Titans

Washington Water Power Co. chairman-designate Tom Matthews will arrive in Spokane from energy central.

Houston dominates the energy industry in the U.S., if not the world, the way its downtown skyscrapers dominate the flat Texas coastal landscape.

According to information compiled by the Greater Houston Partnership, there are more than 5,000 companies in energy and energy-related businesses in the Houston region. Shell Oil Co. alone employs 16,000.

Energy-based businesses produce about 54 percent of all goods and services exported from the seven-county area, which compiled a gross area product in 1997 of $170 billion.

The gross state product for all of Washington in 1996, the most recent year for which figures are available, was $159.6 billion.

More than one-quarter of all U.S. jobs in oil exploration and production are in Houston. More than one-third of all the oil and gas field machinery produced in the U.S. comes from Houston.

Even Avista Energy, Washington Water Power Co.’s deregulated subsidiary, has opened an office here, although not in the downtown core populated by titans like Enron Corp. and Shell.

Instead, Avista occupies a suite of offices in a park-like setting that also includes a hotel where employees shuffling back and forth to Spokane can stay.

Avista President Lloyd Meyers said officials felt the company had to have a presence at the industry’s hub. Not only are the physical resources here, he said, so is the talent needed to build the still-young company.

“We couldn’t talk those people into coming to Spokane,” he said.

Potential recruits want the amenities a city of 1.8 million provides, and job options if a particular situation doesn’t work out, he said.

Avista employs 20 in Houston. Competitors like Enron, which last year purchased Portland General Electric Co., deploy hundreds of traders and support staff.

Steven Kean, an Enron senior vice president, said the best talent is migrating to those companies in those centers where the action is.

“Houston is the capital of the energy business,” he said.