Bud founded his first company, Brigham Exploration Company in 1990, on $30,000. Brigham Exploration was an early pioneer of aggressive technological innovation in oil and gas exploration, from 3-D seismic exploration in various basins during the 1990’s, to its industry leadership and success with horizontal drilling and fracking in the Bakken of North Dakota. Bud led the company as CEO through a successful initial public offering in 1997 and until 2011 when Brigham Exploration was sold to Statoil (now Equinor) for $4.7 billion.
Fast forwarding to today, Bud has founded six energy companies, three of which have successfully completed initial public offerings, and three of which have had successful exits totaling approximately $9 billion. Bud founded, provided seed capital to, and serves as CEO and Chairman of Atlas Energy Solutions, which went public earlier this year with a market cap of $1.8 billion.
Bud is also currently Chairman of three private companies, a new Brigham Exploration Company(2018), that is the largest private Permian Basin non-operating company, Brigham Royalties (2023), which acquires mineral royalty rights, and Langford Energy Partners (2021), which purses operated assets. Collectively, the Brigham platform of private companies manages north of $1 billion of assets.