Drilling Experts

Ben Bond

Drilling & Completions Superintendent

Ben Bond serves as Drilling and Completions Superintendent on the Well Bore Team at Deep Fission. He directs drilling and completion execution for borehole operations supporting the company's underground reactor. His remit covers program delivery, well control, and safety oversight across field operations. He holds responsibility for scopes of work, incident investigation to root cause, and corrective action. He connects reactor deployment requirements with disciplined field execution and predictable delivery.

Ben has directed as many as 30 rigs at once across a 4 billion dollar annual drilling program. He has led managed pressure drilling and flow control on high pressure, high temperature and total loss wells. He has drilled wells at pressures reaching 0.85 PSI per foot and temperatures reaching 330 degrees Fahrenheit. He led the recovery of an oil rig blowout, returning the well to control. He supervised as many as 70 people across active drilling execution.

Ben led the air drilling programs for Chesapeake and BHP, drilling millions of feet on air. He has run seven frac spreads simultaneously in the Eagle Ford, raising output from two stages per day to four. He has executed gravel pack completions in California, live well cementing under pressure, and plug and abandonment through site cleanup. At BHP in Arkansas he developed directional control for air drilling using Efield tools, hammer bits, and air directional motors. His completion designs have pumped to 4,000 pounds of proppant per foot across slickwater and crosslinked gel systems.

Ben holds 27 years of experience in drilling and completions, from the rig floor to operations leadership. He holds the IADC WellSharp certification and OSHA 10 and OSHA 30 certifications. He holds a State of Oklahoma Welding Certification. He completed welding and fabrication training at Kiamichi Technology Center.

Erin Britton

Senior Drilling Engineer

Erin Britton serves as Senior Drilling Engineer and consultant on the Operations and Development team at Deep Fission. She supports well design and subsurface risk assessment for advanced nuclear technology development. Her remit covers drilling engineering, subsurface risk, and technical direction across development programs. She holds responsibility for well design integrity and engineering support to safety critical operations. She connects reactor deployment requirements with proven drilling engineering practice.

Erin has led oil and gas drilling operations, engineering teams, and multimillion dollar development programs. She currently serves as Drilling Solutions Engineering Team Lead at Corva, directing solutions and geoscience engineers supporting operators across the United States and Canada. As Director of Engineering and Operations at Sundance Energy, she reported directly to the CEO. She was accountable for an enterprise operations and engineering budget exceeding 120 million dollars. She managed multidisciplinary teams of more than 60 professionals across multiple locations.

Erin led strategic asset development initiatives that generated more than 65 million dollars in asset value. This included a 36 million dollar earned value management project delivered across multiple sites. She has reduced operating costs by more than 40 percent and improved cycle times by over 45 percent. She has served as a trusted advisor on financial modeling, merger and acquisition analysis, and strategic planning. Her prior roles include Anschutz Exploration, Liberty Resources, Unit Petroleum, and Encana.

Erin holds 15 years of experience in drilling operations and engineering leadership. She earned a Master of Business in Energy from the University of Tulsa. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Oklahoma. She is an Engineer in Training pursuing Professional Engineer certification.

Mark Hinaman

Borehole Team Owner's Engineer Project Manager

Mark Hinaman serves as owner's engineer and project manager for the Borehole Team at Deep Fission. He directs technical oversight and project delivery for borehole development supporting the company's underground reactor. His remit covers owner's engineering, project management, and regulatory interface across the drilling program. He holds responsibility for technical rigor, schedule, and safe execution of borehole operations. He connects reactor deployment requirements with field level engineering and construction.

Mark is a licensed Professional Engineer with direct experience across regulated fossil and nuclear energy projects. He founded Fire2Fission to develop advanced nuclear and natural gas projects across North America. He works with advanced reactor vendors, sites new facilities, and negotiates power purchase agreements with industrial customers. He has permitted, designed, and constructed oil and gas wells under applicable regulatory frameworks. He developed subsurface reservoir strategy to test several unexplored horizons in the Delaware basin.

At Franklin Mountain Energy, Mark helped scale the company from startup to a 2.5 billion dollar acquisition. He managed more than 300 million dollars in capital projects and unlocked nearly 2 billion dollars in additional value. He ran the drilling program and built facilities, pipelines, and production operations. He is a founding member and board member of the Colorado Nuclear Alliance. He joined Energy Secretary Chris Wright as a signatory of the Declaration of Oil and Gas Executives in Support of Nuclear Energy.

Mark holds 15 years of leadership experience across fossil and nuclear energy operations. He hosts the Fire2Fission Podcast, advancing industry collaboration on nuclear deployment. He is a licensed Professional Engineer. He earned a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering.

David Nelson

Vice President, Drilling & Well Completion

David Nelson leads the drilling and well completion program at Deep Fission. He directs the design and delivery of complex subsurface development from concept through field execution. His remit extends across the full drilling lifecycle, from well design through completion and delivery. His oversight covers engineering design practice, operational planning, and borehole delivery in demanding regulatory environments. He holds responsibility for program leadership, technical direction, and the safe execution of drilling operations. His mandate ensures each well is delivered safely, practically, and cost effectively.

His work spans some of the most demanding oil and gas regulatory environments in the world, from California to the North Sea. He has managed drilling projects governed by strict operational, environmental, and safety compliance standards. He has delivered wells under complex subsurface conditions requiring precise design and disciplined execution. This has required close engagement with regulatory review and approval authorities across multiple jurisdictions. His technical command of complex subsurface systems connects research and development with field execution.

David has delivered complex oil and gas developments carrying capital budgets approaching one billion dollars. He has led large scale deployment of deepwater developments and directed multidisciplinary drilling teams across international operations. His responsibilities have spanned multimillion dollar project delivery under demanding technical and schedule constraints. His experience covers both oil and gas and geothermal subsurface systems. He combines rigorous engineering design with extensive operational execution at full project scale.

David holds 30 years of global experience in the design and delivery of complex drilling and completion programs. He earned a BSc in Petroleum Engineering from Heriot-Watt University in Scotland. He also holds an MSc in Petroleum Engineering from the same institution.

Will Westenhaver

HSE Manager, Drilling & Well Completion

Will Westenhaver leads Health, Safety, and Environment for the Drilling and Well Completion program at Deep Fission. He owns the HSE management system framework for the company's first technology proving test well. He directs the safety architecture and Emergency Response Plan governing high hazard drilling operations. His oversight covers management system design, leadership coaching, incident investigation, and crisis response capability. He builds safety systems before operations begin rather than after failure.

Will applies Human and Organizational Performance, the safety discipline developed within nuclear and aviation operations. He has worked from the HOP literature since 2009 to build management systems that learn rather than pass audits. His approach treats error as normal and directs investigation toward organizational learning. He has established incident investigation and crisis response capability across high hazard work sites. He builds safety functions that increase operational capability rather than constrain it.

Will has led HSE operations across five continents and supervised as many as 150 HSE professionals. During the BHP and PetroHawk integration he scaled HSE coverage from 8 rigs to 80 sites. In Ghana he transitioned an expatriate team to Ghanaian leadership capable of sustained independent operation. His experience spans Union Oil of California, Chevron, BP, BHP, Tullow Oil, Anadarko, and Enron Horizon. He has scaled safety organizations and work sites across multiple states and countries.

Will holds 30 years of HSE experience across international oil and gas operations. He holds the IOSH Safety Manager certification. He also holds the NEBOSH International Diploma. He began his career as a paramedic and safety advisor before advancing into HSE leadership.

Jacob Zachry

Senior Drilling & Completions Engineer

Jacob Zachry serves as Senior Drilling and Completions Engineer at Deep Fission. He directs wellbore construction, completion design, and well operability for placing a reactor a mile underground. His remit covers well design, integrity over decades of operation, and permanent plug and abandonment. He works under some of the heaviest regulatory and public scrutiny in the country. He connects reactor deployment requirements with proven wellbore engineering practice.

Jacob is a licensed Professional Engineer with direct experience in high scrutiny regulatory environments. He served as senior engineer and project manager on the SoCalGas Storage Integrity Management Program. That effort spanned Aliso Canyon, Honor Rancho, Goleta, and Playa del Rey following the SS25 blowout. His work supported compliance with CalGEM Emergency Order 1109. He later served as technical lead and subject matter expert for the Sempra Energy response to CalGEM Order 1167, focused on mechanical integrity assessment and remediation of underground natural gas storage wells.

Jacob led the re-entry and cementing of an uncased 10,200 foot borehole at Sesnon Fee 7. He directed an 80 million dollar, 200 well drilling program in Midway Sunset. He engineered the Railroad Valley lithium exploration program in Nevada. He began his career at Baker Oil Tools, rising to Western Area Applications Engineering Manager, and later became principal at Krummrich Engineering. He founded TradeCraft Engineers in 2023.

Jacob holds 20 years of experience in wellbore construction, completion design, and well operability. He is a registered Professional Engineer in Nevada. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Texas Tech University. He is a named inventor on two United States patents, including the equalizing injection tool.