Executive team pictured from left (standing) to bottom right are Shawn McCarter, Jeff Vaughan, F.X. O'Keefe, Tucker Franciscus, and Jim Wason.

Who We Are

Jeffrey R. Vaughan, P.E.

President / Chief Executive Officer

Jeff Vaughan is a registered Professional Petroleum Engineer (Colorado School of Mines, 1982) with over 28 years of diverse leadership experience in the oil and gas industry. The primary focus of his career has been on large scale oil and gas resource plays. Cumulatively, Jeff has directed the development and sale of oil and gas properties with a value in excess of $1.4 billion. Most recently, as CEO of Tracker II and TRZ Energy, Jeff directed the Tracker team in building and developing a position in the Bakken play of over 170,000 acres. After drilling 53 wells to prove the resource potential, this property was sold to Hess Corporation for $1.05 billion in December 2010.

Jeff founded Tracker Resource Development in 2004 as the operating company for various properties owned by Sandefer Capital Partners. The largest of these was Entre Energy Partners. As CEO of Tracker and Entre, he oversaw the development of various projects in Texas (Wolfberry and Cotton Valley) and the Mid-Continent region (CBM, New Albany Shale). This portfolio of properties sold for $370 million in late 2005/early 2006. Prior to joining Entre, Jeff was the President of Buena Vista Development, a division of SCP Management Co, formed to identify and develop bypassed reserves in Buena Vista Hills field located in Kern County, California.

Jeff joined Sandefer Capital Partners in January of 1998 to source and develop investment opportunities in the Rocky Mountain area. Prior to this, Jeff was the Manager of Crude Oil and Natural Gas Trading for Giant Industries, Arizona Inc. and Vice-President Operations and Engineering for Giant Exploration & Production Company.

Before joining Giant, Jeff worked for The Williams Companies for 9 years, holding the positions of Supervisor of Joint Interest and Acquisitions, Drilling & Production Engineer, and Reservoir Engineer. Jeff helped to supervise Williams’ Fruitland Coal drilling program in the world class “Fairway” of the San Juan Basin, directed investments in joint interest properties, and was a principle member of the team that orchestrated the offering of these properties to the market in 1991.

Shawn W. McCarter, P.E.

Executive Vice President / Chief Operating Officer

Shawn McCarter is a Registered Professional Petroleum Engineer (Univ. of Texas, 1988) with 23 years of diversified management, leadership, and engineering experience across the upstream and downstream energy sectors. Most recently, he directed the engineering, subsurface, and operations programs for Tracker and TRZ Energy. Shawn and Jeff Vaughan started Tracker in 2004.

Shawn served as C.O.O. of Entre Energy Partners, President of Red Rock Exploration and Copperhead Gathering. In these capacities he led engineering, subsurface, and operations activities to complete a successful portfolio development of over 150 wells in several basins.

He has led large drilling programs, facility and pipeline installations, field optimizations and expansions, and acquisitions and divestitures throughout the Rocky Mountains, Mid-Continent, Permian Basin, East Texas, Gulf Coast, South Texas, and the Illinois Basin.

Prior to working with Sandefer Capital Partners, Shawn created The McCarter Group, an engineering consulting firm providing engineering, project management, and reserve and economic valuation services to repeat clients for four years.

Before creating The McCarter Group, Shawn worked with Amoco Corporation for ten years in a variety of engineering, project management, and leadership roles. Areas of responsibility included drilling/completions, operations, facilities, reservoir, midstream, and project management. Asset types included dry gas, wet gas, retrograde gas, sour gas, and oil. Reservoir types included both unconventional and conventional reservoirs.

James P. Wason

Vice President Land

James P. Wason is currently the Vice President of Land (Univ. of Denver, 1976) for Tracker Resource Development. Most recently as VP Land for TRZ Energy, Jim grew the company’s land position to over 165,000 acres in consolidated positions, the foundation for optimizing development of the reserve base. He has served in leadership positions for small as well as large independent oil and gas companies in the Rocky Mountain region.

Prior to joining Tracker, Jim served as Director of Land for Petroleum Development Corporation's US land assets. He managed land drilling projects, acquisitions and divestitures in the Marcellus, Barnett, Bakken, Wattenberg, and the Piceance Basins. Previously, as Land Director for Kerr-McGee's assets in the Wattenberg Field, he led multi-disciplined teams to drill infill wells and exploit a tight sand gas play. Jim was instrumental in working with the Legislators, Oil and Gas Commission and public communities to pass infill spacing rules for the Wattenberg field, high-grading Kerr McKee's portfolio.

Jim currently is a member of the Denver Association of Petroleum Landman, American Association of Petroleum Land Professionals and active in the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation. He is also actively involved in the Colorado Oil & Gas Association.

F.X. O’Keefe

Vice President Geology

F.X. O’Keefe is a Certified Petroleum Geologist (B.S. Geology, Bucknell Univ., M.S. Geology, Texas A&M Univ.) and has 30 years upstream energy experience, both domestic and international. He is currently Vice President of Geology for Tracker Resource Development and led the geoscience team for the Bakken and Three Forks development in the Williston Basin.

Prior to joining Tracker, F.X. was Vice President, Rocky Mountain Region with Access Exploration Corp, screening investment opportunities for a subscribed group of oil and gas companies. He was also the principal geologist and an investor with Savant Alaska, LLC, which established production on the North Slope Badami Unit in October 2010. In 2006, he created FXploration, LLC, an independent geologic consulting practice.

From 2002 through 2005, F.X. served as Manager, Exploration and Acquisitions for Western Gas Resources.

F.X. began his career in Denver with Amoco in 1980, joined World Wide New Ventures in 1986, transferred to Amoco Tunisia as President and Resident Manager in 1992, was the Chief Geoscientist of Amoco in 1998 at the time of the BP merger, and then became Business Unit Leader, Exploration in Alaska with BP.

He is a member of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (Certified Petroleum Geologist #4525), the American Institute of Professional Geologists (Certified Professional Geologist #8149), the Society of Independent Professional Earth Scientists (#3150), the Association of International Petroleum Negotiators, and the Rocky Mountain Association of Geologists.

Tucker L. Franciscus

Chief Financial Officer

Tucker has nearly 20 years of financial experience in the energy sector (Univ. of Denver, Daniels College of Business MBA 1997, Ohio Wesleyan University B.A. 1991). Prior to joining Tracker, Tucker was a capital markets consultant and then CFO to Petroflow Energy from 2009 thru 2010. Prior to his position with Petroflow, Tucker was a Principal and Strategic Adviser for a Denver-based high net worth partnership with operations in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming, which sold in 2009. Tucker was also an executive at PYR Energy from 2004 through 2007, where he managed all finance, accounting, and some operation functions before selling to Samson Resources of Oklahoma.

Between 2002 and 2004, Tucker oversaw the Energy Investment Banking Group at Stifel Nicolaus & Company. Tucker was responsible for mergers and acquisitions, equity and debt offerings, and private placements for all of Stifel’s energy clients. From 1998 until joining Stifel, Tucker was the Senior Associate and Manager for J.P. Morgan’s Global Energy Group in New York, and an Associate in the Deutsche Banc BT Wolfensohn Mergers & Acquisitions Group, also in New York. Tucker has executed numerous mergers and acquisitions, equity, debt, and other financing transactions in various industries including energy, defense, media, and telecom.

For five years preceding his banking experience, Tucker worked in various marketing and business development positions in the energy sector, including Snyder Oil and KN Energy (Interenergy). Additionally, Tucker is a retired Major in U.S. Army (Infantry) and served on active duty and in the reserves for over fifteen years including a short tour with U.S. Special Operations Command from 2005-2006.