In the early decades of the 20th century, the people of what is today Saudi Arabia lived lives of considerable austerity.

Formal education was uncommon, and the conveniences of the industrial era were mostly unknown. By the time Abd Al-Aziz ibn Abd Al-Rahman Al Saud – known to westerners as Ibn Saud – merged his central Arabian realm of the Najd with the western Kingdom of the Hijaz to form the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932, the new nation was deeply in debt. The principal source of national revenue – a tax on pilgrims to Makkah – had declined sharply as the worldwide Great Depression reduced traffic to the Holy Cities.
Oil, of course, would soon liberate Saudi Arabia from hardship, and most accounts of the kingdom’s stunningly rapid modernisation begin with the narrative of its oil industry: the 1933 signing of the concession agreement with the Standard Oil Company of California (Socal), the 1938 gusher at the now legendary well called Dammam No 7 and, in 1939, the first export shipment of crude oil.
For the better part of a century, Americans have participated in the development of almost every aspect of contemporary Saudi life except religion. In addition to setting the oil industry in motion, it was Americans who helped mechanise Saudi agriculture, create the national airline, set up the national television network and organise the central bank. Americans trained and equipped the several branches of the Saudi armed forces, and Americans provided educational opportunities for countless thousands of students, many of whom are today national and corporate leaders.
It is important to recognise that the work of those Americans who won the king’s favour in the first third of the 20th century was not undertaken at the behest of the United States government. Until World War II, Washington had no official interest in Saudi Arabia, and it stationed no representative in the kingdom. The pioneers of partnership were private individuals, and it was a measure of Abd Al-Aziz’s wisdom that he took advantage of what they offered to improve the lives of his subjects.
By the mid-1920’s, Abd Al-Aziz knew by reputation of another American, a world traveller and philanthropist, who might be helpful in a different way. Charles R. Crane became the improbable catalyst for the rise of Saudi Arabia’s oil industry.
Born in 1888 in Chicago, Crane was heir to his family’s plumbing-fixtures fortune. As a young man, he briefly held the position of president of Crane Bathroom Equipment Company, but sinks and toilets bored him. He was far more interested in affairs of the world – and in particular the affairs of the Arab world. He spent much of his adult life and a great deal of his fortune supporting economic development in Arab countries and the dissemination of knowledge in the United States about Arabs and Islam. As early as 1914, he financed a lecture series at US universities by the renowned Dutch scholar-diplomat C. Snouck Hurgronje.
After extensive travels and interviews in Palestine and Syria, the King-Crane commission recommended that Wilson support only limited Jewish immigration to Palestine so as not to interfere with self-determination for the Arabs, newly free of Ottoman rule. Crane’s endorsement of the Arab cause caught the attention of prominent Arabs, including Abd Al-Aziz. Crane’s first meeting with Abd Al-Aziz took place in February 1931, arranged by St. John Philby and Shaykh Fawzan Al-Sabik, Abd Al-Aziz’s representative in Cairo. Nominally, the subject was horses: Crane admired Arabian horses and had heard of Shaykh Fawzan’s renowned stables.
When the shaykh made him a gift of two prize steeds, an astonished Crane offered on the spot to send a geologist to Arabia to help the new country prospect for minerals. Shaykh Fawzan communicated this offer to the king, who promptly accepted and invited Crane to visit him. So high was Crane’s reputation that the king himself travelled to Jiddah from the capital to receive him.
Their conversations extended over four days. Crane formally restated his impromptu offer to provide the services of a geologist who would explore the hinterlands for water and minerals. This was not so simple a proposition as it sounds: In those days, foreigners were generally restricted to Jiddah, and it would be a sharp break with tradition to have outsiders roaming the country’s interior. But the king was pragmatic. He accepted Crane’s offer for the same reason he had accepted the medical services of the doctors from Bahrain – he knew he needed help. The engineer dispatched by Crane was one whom Crane had employed on bridge-building projects in Yemen. His name was Karl S Twitchell.
In 1942, he led a team that travelled more than 16,000 kilometres through the kingdom to assess prospects for agriculture, identifying several regions where soil conditions made farming feasible despite the limited water supply. An industrious Vermonter, Karl Twitchell wrote in a 1947 book about his work in Saudi Arabia that “I have probably been longer and more closely associated with King ibn Saud and his country than any other American.” It seems beyond dispute.
Twitchell arrived in Jiddah in the spring of 1931, together with his wife Nora, and they set out immediately on an exploratory trek through the Hijaz. On the subject of water, they brought disappointing news to Abd Al-Aziz and his finance minister, Abdullah Suleiman: There was none. Small amounts might be captured with catchbasins and wells, but there was no possibility of large-scale development of water resources because they didn’t exist. However, Twitchell did report good prospects for mining gold and other minerals, but an extensive geological survey of the kingdom would be required. Crane agreed to finance it.
Upon returning to Jiddah, which was importing drinking water by boat across the Red Sea from Egypt, Twitchell and an Arab colleague repaired and expanded an aging network of pipes and water tunnels and constructed a windmill that raised 150 litres a minute from a well outside the city, “making an appreciable addition to the water supply,” as Twitchell wrote.
Twitchell was supervising a search for gold in the mountains near Taif when he received a request to travel to Riyadh to see the king. Going to Riyadh was difficult, as there was still no paved road, but he set off immediately. The king, thinking of the financial future of his kingdom, wanted to discuss the possibility of finding oil in Al-Hasa, on the east coast of Arabia. The geology there was similar to that of Bahrain, where Socal was already prospecting. Twitchell advised the king to wait for the results of the exploration in Bahrain: If oil was found there, it was likely that it would also be found on the Saudi Arabian side of the strait.
Socal met with success in Bahrain in 1932 and, at the king’s request, Twitchell returned to the US to seek mining and oil companies that might be interested in Saudi Arabia. It was the midst of the Great Depression, and all turned him down except Socal.
So it was that Twitchell was part of the Socal team when the oil company’s chief negotiator, Lloyd Hamilton, arrived in Jiddah in February 1933 to begin talks with Abdullah Suleiman about an oil exploration concession. Hamilton was responsible for the legal terms; Twitchell, trusted by both sides, was responsible for the geographic provisions that defined the area to be explored. Hamilton and Suleiman signed the concession agreement on May 29, and the first Socal geologists arrived by boat at Jubail on the shore of the Gulf on September 23.
“These oil men deserve great credit for their faith in America and American enterprise,” Twitchell wrote, praising Socal for its willingness to invest during a time of economic hardship.
Twitchell spent another two decades in Saudi Arabia. In 1942, he led a team that travelled more than 16,000 kilometres through the kingdom to assess prospects for agriculture, identifying several regions where soil conditions made farming feasible despite the limited water supply. The resulting agriculture is today increasingly important in the Saudi economy.
Barger was one of what became known as “The Hundred Men,” the core American staff of the company then known as Aramco who stayed on in Dhahran to maintain the oil installations, mothballed until shipping lanes cleared.Once the oil exploration concession was granted and American geologists and engineers set up the permanent encampment that became Dhahran, the oil men faced the challenge of running an American operation in a foreign country. These early Americans were well aware of the difficulties their colleagues in the oil business had brought upon themselves in other countries by high-handed or insensitive treatment of local populations; they wished to develop a positive relationship with their hosts. Doing so required the Americans to educate, train and care for Saudi workers and their families to a much greater extent than corporations usually did and, more generally, to treat the people, their customs and their religion with respect. The concession agreement actually mandated the use of Saudi workers wherever possible, and this requirement could be met only through extensive training and education. Moreover, the king and his countrymen were proud that their country had never been colonised, and at no time did they feel themselves inferior to their more technologically advanced guests. It was essential for the Americans to learn Saudi ways and treat Saudis as partners and co-equals. Few did so more completely, or with better grace, than Thomas C. Barger.
Unlike Crane, Barger had had no particular intention of going to the Arab world. He was a young mining engineer who found himself out of work during the Depression. He desperately needed a job so he could marry Kathleen Ray, a young woman he had met while teaching at the University of North Dakota. There, he also had met J. O. Nomland, a Socal geologist who was heading a crew looking for oil in the state. With no prospects of work in mining, Barger asked Nomland for a job, and Socal hired him in 1937—and put him on its Saudi Arabia project. Though having a job meant he could marry Ray, the assignment also meant he would be separated from her right after the wedding because she could not—yet—accompany him to Dhahran, then a bachelor camp without amenities.
“When I agreed to work in Saudi Arabia, I didn’t even know where it was,” Barger wrote late in life. He learned where it was, and much more, in the 32 years he spent there.
His career began with the most basic of tasks: roaming Al-Hasa with Arab guides, mapping the land, looking for likely drilling sites. This required days of hot, dusty travel and nights in tents. In the enforced intimacy of these explorations, Barger learned Arabic, and he developed a lasting appreciation for his Arab companions’ navigational skills and inventive storytelling.
During World War II, Barger was one of what became known as “The Hundred Men,” the core American staff of the company, by then known as Aramco, who stayed on in Dhahran to maintain the oil installations, mothballed until shipping lanes cleared. After the war, joined at last by his Kathleen, he transferred to the company’s government relations department, which was responsible for keeping lines of communication open between Aramco and the king and his government. By all accounts, Barger was the Aramco executive most committed to training and educating Saudi employees. He spoke Arabic, understood the need for medical care and housing, and took to heart the company’s contractual commitment to promote Saudi workers.
This meant that within a single generation, Aramco’s Saudi workers were transformed from a largely uneducated corps that performed manual tasks to a broadly trained workforce that today fills technical and executive positions at every level, including that of Saudi Aramco’s CEO. It was an evolution that did not just happen; rather, it came about because Aramco, through Barger and others like him, abided by the wishes of King Abd Al-Aziz to raise his people’s living standards and provide opportunities. Barger put this commitment in writing in the early 1940’s in an 83-page document stressing that Aramco’s future success would depend on its relations with its Saudi workers, whose aspirations would have to be met.
Beginning with elementary-level instruction in Arabic for a handful of eager young men, Aramco became a virtual university of training. Its schools and training centers taught English, arithmetic, basic science, hygiene, nursing, typing, driving, geography, industrial management and oilfield operations to thousands. By the early 1950’s, more than half the workforce was enrolled in one training programme or another. The proportion of Saudi workers classified as “skilled” rose from nine percent in 1953 to 57 per cent a decade later. The company sent the most promising to Beirut, Cairo and the United States for advanced education.
Barger, a principal architect of this policy, became president of Aramco in 1959, chief executive officer in 1961 and chairman in 1968, a year before his retirement. When one of the company’s early trainees, Ali Al-Naimi, became the first Saudi president of the company in 1984, Barger sent him a congratulatory message. In reply, Naimi paid Barger this compliment: “I am honoured that you were one of the pioneers in shaping many a young Saudi Arab career. You…had the greatest vision when you supported the training effort of Saudi Arab employees during its early days.” In 1995, Naimi was appointed Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Petroleum. Among the pioneers’ list are the following who contributed greatly to building up Saudi Aramco:
Fahmi Basrawi
With only a sixth-grade education, Fahmi Basrawi began an exciting journey with Aramco, obtaining a job as one of the first teachers at the company’s Jabal School in Dhahran.
A resident of Jiddah who worked as a clerk in the local police station, Basrawi responded to an advertisement for Aramco employment. Because he could read and write Arabic he was quickly hired. He was told he was going to be an English teacher! Basrawi did not actually know English, but he soon taught himself the language, learning as he went, only a lesson or two ahead of his students.
At the time Basrawi taught at the Jabal School, there were three or four teachers and over 100 students. His work was cut out for him, and he quickly found himself to be a natural teacher with a penchant for organising youth sports and field trips. Basrawi remembered teaching Naimi for two years during his time at the Jabal School. Naimi, he recalled was a very prepared student.
Following his years at Jabal, driven by his own educational goals, Basrawi attended college in Beirut. He was among the first group of Aramco students to study in Lebanon. He later returned to Dhahran for a job in the company’s government relations division.
Basrawi is also well known as a personality on Aramco Television, where he hosted educational programmes for 17 years. Through this programming, women in the Eastern Province in Saudi Arabia learned to read and write during an era when there were no schools for girls. He later hosted a popular quiz show where Aramco contestants competed on the subjects of math, history, geography and religion.
 One of Aramco’s important pioneers, Basrawi reflects back on his time with Aramco and thinks it is wonderful that the Saudi employee of today has even more opportunities for education than during his era.
 Frank Jungers
He held what Fortune Magazine called “One of the Most Delicate Positions in all Industry.”
Undisputedly a key figure in the company’s history, CEO Frank Jungers oversaw momentous growth during his time with Aramco. Originally from North Dakota, Jungers was educated in Oregon and Washington State in engineering. He served in the US Navy and then immediately went to work for Standard Oil of California in San Francisco. It was 1947, and Jungers was just 23 years of age when he was sent to Saudi Arabia for the first time. He was immediately given a permanent assignment in the kingdom to work on a construction project. He quickly developed a reputation for maintaining very positive relations with the Saudi workforce. This is the reputation that Jungers carried with him throughout his career and an attribute that made him a great success with the company.
Unlike some of the earlier pioneers who built the company and its facilities from the ground up, Jungers joined a going concern, and worked hard to enhance and improve its operations. The course had already been laid out by his predecessors. Jungers, however, faced equally daunting challenges, as he was running Aramco during an era of massive change.
A natural problem solver, Jungers was tapped early on for managerial roles in Ras Tanura and then in Dhahran. In his desire to communicate better with his Saudi workforce, Jungers became fluent in Arabic. In 1971, Jungers was appointed as president of Aramco and served as chairman of the board and CEO from 1973 to 1978. During his time of senior leadership, Jungers oversaw the creation of the kingdom’s Master Gas System, the negotiations surrounding the Saudisation of the company, and the Opec oil embargo. A key figure during a critical time, Jungers today is recognised for his 30 years of service with Aramco and his dedication to the growth and professional development of the Saudi workforce during his tenure.
Floyd Ohliger
Surprisingly Floyd Ohliger, who was present during the very early days of Aramco, would have been reluctant to consider himself a “pioneer.” In Ohliger’s eyes, the true “pioneers” of the company were the early geologists, including Max Steineke and others. Ohliger said in a 1983 interview with “The Arabian Sun” that his team did not see themselves as “pathfinders” but rather as just men who were there to work.
Educated in petroleum engineering at the University of Pittsburgh and Stanford University, Ohliger’s began his career in the oil fields of Venezuela and Colombia. In 1934 he was approached by Standard Oil of California (Socal) about working in Saudi Arabia. He jumped at the chance, and immediately headed to Al-Khobar, where his first assignment as a petroleum engineer was to oversee construction of a pier and supervise the unloading of equipment. He went on to hold many positions with Aramco, developing a strong reputation for “getting the job done.” One of Ohliger’s more interesting jobs was with Government Relations, where he had frequent contact with King Abdul Aziz. The two men developed a very positive, respectful relationship and Ohliger reflected fondly on his close interactions with the King. Additional positions Ohliger held included resident manager, general manager, vice president and chairman of the Aramco Board of Directors. He retired from Aramco in 1957 and subsequently returned to the United States with his family.
On the 50th Anniversary of Aramco, Ohliger returned to the Eastern Province and other areas in Saudi Arabia, met with management and toured the new Exploration and Petroleum Engineering Center (Expec).
Abdul Aziz M Shalfan
Abdul Aziz Muhammad Shalfan joined California Arabian Standard Oil Company (Casoc) in 1934 as Employee No 4 and continued to work, declining retirement for nearly 49 years, until his death in 1983.
During his lengthy tenure with the company, Shalfan served a variety of functions within the organisation and a key role in the Public Relations Department. Shalfan worked at the Aramco Oil Exhibit and quickly developed a strong reputation for his warm and engaging treatment of exhibit visitors.
Originally from the Najd, Shalfan as a young boy was brought to Bahrain where he encountered two Western geologists in pursuit of oil. Although quite young, Shalfan offered his expertise as a native of Saudi Arabia, to accompany the gentlemen in their exploration efforts. Such began his adventures in the search for oil, and led Shalfan ultimately to the well called Dammam No 7, where Max Steineke and his geological team reached their goal for commercial oil discovery in 1938.
Shalfan experienced first-hand this momentous period in history, important both for the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the world. Describing the rapid pace of transformation within Saudi Arabia as a result of discovering oil, Shalfan proclaimed, “We have gone from nothing to everything.”
Abdullah Al-Tariki
Engaging, dynamic, courageous and outspoken, Abdullah H. Al-Tariki is widely remembered as a world figure in the politics of oil and energy.
A Saudi native, Al-Tariki originally came from Zilfi, the son of a camel owner who organised caravans between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. At an early age, Al-Tariki was noted for his intelligence and was sent to schools in Kuwait and Cairo. He later earned a scholarship to the University of Texas, where he studied chemistry and geology.
Al-Tariki was responsible for many firsts in Saudi Arabia. He was one of the first American-educated Saudis and is believed to be the first Saudi trained in both chemistry and geology. At 35 years of age, his role with the Directorate of Oil and Mining Affairs was to process petroleum statistics from Aramco and provide these to the royal family with his analyses.
In 1954, he became director general of Petroleum and Mineral Affairs. In 1959, Al-Tariki was the first Saudi elected to Aramco’s Board of Directors. Upon creation of the Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources in 1960, Al-Tariki was appointed the first oil minister.
Al-Tariki was pivotal in supporting both the nationalisation and the Saudisation of the company.
Among his other accomplishments, Al-Tariki was instrumental in the founding in 1960 of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec), and in his later years, served as an oil consultant and an activist in Arab affairs.
Fred Davies
Spanning a 37-year career in the oil business, Fred Davies was one of Saudi Aramco’s earliest pioneers and geologists. Originally from Aberdeen, South Dakota, Davies studied engineering at the University of Minnesota before serving in World War I. He became a geologist in the United States and started his career in the oil business at the California Oil Company in Texas.
It was 1934 when Davies visited the Arabian Gulf on his first trip. On behalf of Socal (Standard Oil Company of California) and its subsidiary Bapco, Davies worked with the team that located the first wildcat well in Bahrain. Based on this discovery and his superior instincts, Davies recommended efforts to obtain a concession agreement in Saudi Arabia. He was convinced of the kingdom’s great potential for oil exploration.
This instinctual knowledge led to a tremendous future for Davies with the company, including his presence in 1939 when King Abd Al-Aziz turned the valve that permitted oil to flow onto the first export tanker at Ras Tanura. Davies’ career with the company flourished after the momentous entrance of Saudi Arabia into commercial oil production.
Davies’ career path included president of Casoc (California Arabian Standard Oil Company); Aramco vice president of Exploration and Production; executive vice president of Aramco; and eventually CEO and chairman of the board. He served on the senior leadership team during the season that Aramco relocated its headquarters from New York to Dhahran. He relocated his family to Dhahran and resided in the kingdom for the remainder of his Aramco career.
In a display of honour, Aramco’s first floating storage vessel was named the “F.A. Davies.” Liston Hills, president of Aramco at the time, described Davies as a man “whose vision, professional skills and persistence were instrumental in the uncovering of vast petroleum reserves in the Gulf.” 
Max Steineke
Chief geologist from 1936-1946, Max Steineke arrived in Saudi Arabia after 13 years as a Socal (Standard Oil Company of California) geologist with experience in Alaska, Colombia and New Zealand. Steineke is described by author Wallace Stegner in his book Discovery!, as “Burly, big-jawed, hearty, enthusiastic, profane, indefatigable, careless of irrelevant detail and implacable in tracking down a line of inquiry, he made men like him, and won their confidence.” The early pioneers agreed, and Steineke was highly respected by both his American and Saudi colleagues. Despite their limited communication in broken Arabic and English, Steineke developed a close friendship with chief guide, Khamis ibn Rimthan. The two worked side by side for many years in the early exploration days.
Steineke is well known for his efforts at Dammam Well No 7, which in 1938 produced oil in commercial quantities for the first time in Saudi Arabia. With no promise of success – and previous unsuccessful drilling attempts – the teams kept drilling at Steineke’s urging, which led to the discovery that ultimately transformed the kingdom. It was no surprise that Steineke was awarded the prestigious Sidney Powers Memorial Medal in 1951, the highest honour for a petroleum geologist. Steineke’s perseverance and commitment to Aramco give him a very special place in both the company and world history.
Najat Husseini
Aramco’s first Saudi female employee with a college degree, Najat Husseini holds a significant place with pioneers in the company’s history. The daughter of a Saudi diplomat, Husseini’s experience with education occurred outside the kingdom, first in Rome, Italy, where she attended Marymount High School and subsequently at the University of Damascus in Syria.
It was 1964, and Aramco had not yet hired an educated Saudi woman. Husseini, determined to put her education to work, applied to the company. Aramco lacked a precedent in this matter and sought special permission from King Faisal, a great supporter of women’s education, to hire Husseini.
Upon gaining approval, Husseini took part in a health education outreach program where she contributed directly to Aramco’s communities. With other Aramco employees, Husseini travelled and educated Saudi families on personal care, health practices and sanitisation. Her impact on Aramco and its female work force – as well as on the improved health care of the surrounding communities – has left a lasting mark on the company. 
Nassir Al-Ajmi
“I wasn’t looking for a career. I was looking for a living”, Nassir Al-Ajmi says in a 2007 interview about his 42 year experience with Aramco. Al-Ajmi represents a remarkable story of a humble teenager who started his path at Aramco as an auto-mechanic trainee in Dhahran in the 1950s. Eventually, Al-Ajmi grew to occupy the role of Executive Vice President, leading the company through its evolution to a state owned enterprise in 1988.
Al-Ajmi is honoured as one of the most successful leaders in Saudi Arabia, in transitioning a company and a kingdom from the pre-oil discovery era to industrialisation and growth. With his leadership skills shining through at an early age, Al-Ajmi was selected by Aramco for an out-of-kingdom education in Lebanon and the United States. He completed a high school degree in Beiruit, and a University degree at Milton College in Wisconsin. Upon returning to Aramco, Al-Ajmi took on several leadership roles within the company and was ultimately sent for further advanced education at Columbia University and Harvard University. With his education, ambition and determination, Al-Ajmi served in the roles of vice president, senior vice president and an eventual election to the board of directors. Colleagues describe Al-Ajmi as hard working and always available.
Al-Ajmi is currently retired, and is a published author of “The Legacy of a Lifetime”. In a 2007 interview, Al-Ajmi recounts his experience in the early days of Aramco. He provides thoughts on the future of Aramco and says he hopes to see managers who are able to grow and learn beyond what the founders were capable of.
Richard Kerr
After working with Shell Oil in Mexico and Canada, Richard Kerr was approached with an opportunity to travel to Saudi Arabia in 1933. Because of his expertise in geology, Kerr was asked to provide aerial geological reconnaissance for Standard Oil of California (Socal).
Kerr and colleague Charles Rocheville ordered a Fairchild 71 airplane and began their aerial journey. There were no roads in Saudi Arabia at that time, nor any maps or communications tools to help them find their way. Kerr and Rocheville relied on markers left by other explorers who dug trenches in the sand, filled them with gas and set them on fire to leave blackened messages and words to other travellers. Kerr studied, sketched and photographed the Arabian terrain, and played a great part in the development of the country’s maps. Today, many of Kerr’s photographs remain in Aramco’s historical archives.
After his first airborne mission, Kerr returned to Saudi Arabia for permanent employment with the company from 1937 – 1950. Described by colleagues as ‘insatiably curious’, another important accomplishment Kerr made is the design of a low-pressure sand tire for desert driving. He received recognition by the US Secretary of Defense for this contribution which enabled longer distance driving in desert areas and made greater exploration efforts possible in Saudi Arabia.
Robert (Bert) Miller
A historical icon, Robert (“Bert”) Miller was a member of the first geological party to arrive in Saudi Arabia to begin the exploration for oil. Having arrived in Bahrain in 1932, Miller and colleague Schuyler B. Henry, in agreement with the Saudi Arabian government, travelled to Jubail to begin search efforts.
Within the first week of their arrival, Miller and Henry, both experienced geologists and travellers, logged over 75 miles along the coast of Al-Hasa. A visible geological feature the two witnessed from Bahrain Island was located and named the “Dammam Dome”. In finding the land and terrain similar to Bahrain, both geologists had strong instincts that told them this area too would produce large quantities of oil. Their intuitions were correct, as this exact site was eventually used for commercial oil production years later.
During his time in the kingdom, Miller grew a beard, adopted the Arab headdress and learned phrases of Arabic to enable communication with the Saudis. He directed surface geological studies of the region, and travelled vast distances relying on his experience living in tents in the Arctic Circle, Sicily, Spain, Colombia, Venezuela and Africa.
In later years, Miller went on to serve as manager with the California Arabian Standard Oil Company (Casoc) and travelled in similar exploration efforts in Italy, Colombia and India. When he returned to Saudi Arabia in 1956, he was able to witness the vast transformation of the kingdom as a result of his early efforts, twenty years prior.
Living to the age of 91, Miller had a full life with travel, adventure and an impressive ability to survive on the road, in tents and in the desert. 
Khamis ibn Rimthan
Described by Tom Barger as the “Guide of Guides,” Khamis ibn Rimthan is one of the most beloved ”pioneers” of Saudi Aramco. Originally from the noble Bedouin tribe Ujman, Ibn Rimthan left quite an impression on the early explorers in Saudi Arabia, including Robert P. Miller, Schuyler B. Henry, J.W. Hoover and Max Steineke.
Serving as a guide to these early geologists, Khamis took his first trip with the Americans in the winter of 1934. Through episodes of extreme weather, including sandstorms and severe cold, Khamis became an indispensable resource to the exploration party with his built-in navigational skills and vast knowledge of the landscape. Described as a man of great natural dignity, self-respect and a tremendous sense of humor, the early American pioneers reflected fondly on Khamis and his expertise in navigating the field.
In particular, Khamis developed a close friendship with Max Steineke, and though the two held different languages and cultures, they found a common thread of life in their exploration experience in open territory.
Khamis stands out as the most relied-upon guide during the company’s early years.
Ajab Khan
Originally from Peshawar, in what is now known as Pakistan, Ajab Khan was present in the earliest days of Saudi Aramco’s history. He is best known for his keen ability to bridge the cultural gap between the early American explorers and the Saudis by serving as a guide, translator and interpreter.
Khan was a young man residing in Bahrain when he was asked to provide interpretation services for a group of Bapco (Bahrain Petroleum Company) geologists engaged in oil exploration. He first came to Saudi Arabia in 1933, accompanying Casoc (Californ