Mr. Louden received his BA from Earlham College in 1962, and his MA from Bowling Green State University in 1964.  He joined Shell Oil Company in 1966 as a geologist.  For eight years, he compiled regional stratigraphic studies largely in Mesozoic carbonate reservoirs from south Texas to offshore Florida. A focus for these studies was the development of geophysical models to evaluate whether reservoir quality and small scale stratigraphic changes could be seen on CDP seismic in Shell's files.  In 1974, with Tenneco, he took a similar approach to studies of the lower Paleozoic carbonates of the Williston Basin.  In 1977 he joined Fluor Oil and Gas Corporation,  where he caused drilling of five exploratory wells, and created numerous maps and cross sections in Offshore Louisiana Shipshoal 72 Field, which caused Mobil to do substantial development drilling on Fluor acreage, thereby resulting in large increase in income to Fluor.  In 1980, Mr. Louden took a position with Buckhorn Petroleum as District Geologist/Plains Division Exploration Manager and Southern Division Exploration Manager, where he studied the  stratigraphy in the Ismay/Desert Creek interval of the Blanding Basin.  He also supervised three to five geologists who developed a large inventory of prospects in the Williston, Powder, DJ, Piceance, Green River, Big Horn and San Juan Basins. Most significant discoveries were in the Williston Basin.  In 1984 he joined Mission Ridge Enterprise, where he generated prospects and established production in Divide and Renville Counties, North Dakota.  In 1986 and 1987 as a consultant, Mr. Louden, with a partner, developed a large core database project, for sale to industry. 

In 1987 Mr. Louden joined Quadra Oil and Gas (Canada Northwest Energy) where he found new oil in bypassed zones between existing perforated intervals as well as new oil in deeper pays in existing fields -- primarily in Goldsmith Field near Odessa, Texas.  In 1989 and 1990 he contracted with Chuska Energy Company for whom he used Petroseis mapping software and a 4000 well digital database to create a suite of Paradox Basin maps.  From 1991 through 1993 he contracted with Snyder Oil and Gas Corporation to create a large suite of prospect maps in the Blanding sub-basin of the Paradox Basin, using AutoCad/Geokit mapping software and the 4000 well digital database of the Paradox Basin. 

Since 1993, Mr. Louden has worked with TPA exploring for oil and gas in the southern Paradox Basin.  In 1999 he was awarded Best Well of the Year by IPAMS and Hart Publications.  This was for a new field discovery in an Upper Ismay algal mound of the southern Paradox Basin.