A Class Project

Tim Latimer, a drilling engineer, came to Stanford to start a geothermal company using techniques from the shale boom. As the lone MBA in engineering classes, he won over a skeptical professor, who pointed him to Jack Norbeck, a PhD with expertise in the field and the co-founder Tim had been looking for. Just as the two got started, a stranger’s conference paper proposed bringing shale techniques to geothermal. “We’ve been scooped,” Tim told Jack. But the stranger, Christian Gradl, didn’t see a rival. He saw a team.