Daughter’s suffering keeps a top corporate attorney grounded
NexTier Oilfield Solutions General Counsel Kevin McDonald is happy a new decade has arrived.
During the past 10 years, the Houston corporate lawyer and energy executive faced extraordinary challenges and achieved monumental successes — all while battling a heartbreaking and lifechanging situation.
“I thank God that decade is over,” said McDonald, 53. “The past was difficult from start to finish. It tested me as a lawyer, as a business leader and as a person.”
Three times with threeHouston energy companies, McDonald stood on the platform of the New York Stock Exchange to ring the opening or closing bell.
As the coronavirus hit in 2020, he was still finalizing the integration of the $1.8 billion merger he engineered severalmonths earlier between Houston-based Keane Group and C&J Energy, creating NexTier, an oil-field services powerhouse with more than $4 billion in annual revenues.
Even as McDonald and his legal team implemented COVID-19 restrictions, he led NexTier’s sale of its well-support services segment to Basic Energy Services for $93.7 million.
In November, McDonald, who also is NexTier’s chief administrative officer, guided the company to a partnership with National OilwellVarco towork on an electronic fracking systemthatwill dramatically reduce carbon emissions at well sites.
None of it compares to the
crushing phone call he got in August 2011 from his wife, Natalie, whowas about eightmonths pregnant. “Something is wrong,” she said.
‘Stunned, devastated’
Their unborn daughter had a malignant golf ball-size tumor in her brain.
“We were stunned, devastated,” he said. “There were no answers. Only questions. It gavemea reality check on what my priorities need to be. We had no idea what we would face over the next 10 years.”
Energy industry lawyers and executives say that despite — or possibly because of — that call, McDonald is viewed as one of the most successful, thoughtful and kind-hearted corporate attorneys in Texas.
McDonald led the Keane Group through a complex IPO that raised $300 million in 2017 and then guided the Houston-based hydraulic fracturing company through its first proxy statement and first annual stockholders meeting. A few months later, he handled Keane’s acquisition of Refinery Specialties Inc., which was followed by completing two stock repurchases, a senior loan credit facility and two
underwritten secondary offerings exceeding $307 million.
McDonald is also involved in multiple charities and pro bono organizations. For example, he serves on the 12th Man Foundation, which helps fund scholarships for A&M athletes.
Citing the scores of corporate successes and contributions to the community, the Houston chapter of the Association of Corporate Counsel and The Texas Lawbook in December named McDonald its Houston General Counsel of the Year for midsize companies.
“I’ve seen Kevin make some bold and very difficult positions that came with significant risks because they were the right decisions,” said King & Spalding partner Tracie Renfroe, who has worked with McDonald on litigation matters since 2002. “He knows when to take cases to trial, and he knows when cases need to be resolved or settled.”
“From a character perspective, you will never find a better man,” Renfroe said.
McDonald, a veteran of 20 trials, said he enjoys being a corporate lawyer and business leader and is proud of his accomplishments.
“There’s a lot of satisfaction negotiating the deals and helping the business be more successful,” he said. “But what we experienced with our daughter, with Marlie
Ruth, it puts everything into true perspective. We learned what is truly important.”
Texas roots
Though McDonald was born outside Sacramento, Calif., he wasn’t yet 2 when his family moved to College Station so his father could join the faculty at Texas A&M. His mother was a high school teacher.
McDonald was in eighth grade when his family moved to West Texas, where his great-greatgrandfather had homesteaded land in the 1880s.
With a scholarship from the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, McDonald majored in agricultural economics at A&M and received his law degree from the University of Texas in 1992.
Legal powerhouse Fulbright & Jaworski — now Norton Rose Fulbright — hired McDonald as a trial attorney, which he says, prepared him to be a better general counsel and business leader.
“In today’s corporate environment, general counsels must be versatile like a Swiss Army knife,” he said.
Beginning in 2001, McDonald spent three years as managing counsel for litigation at Valero, two years as head of global litigation at Anadarko Petroleum and in 2006 was named general counsel at Cooper Industries.
‘I felt overcome’
Then came the call that changed everything.
McDonald left the hospital the day of his daughter’s diagnosis determined to find solutions. He made copies of the MRI results and sent them to pediatric cancer hospitals. Within days, the doctors at Texas Children’s Hospital invited the McDonalds to tour the facility.
“I remember walking through the cancer center and seeing all the kids going through chemo,” he said. “I felt over come with the reality of the situation. It knocked me to my knees.”
Marlie Ruth McDonald was born Sept. 22 and four days later, she had seven hours of surgery to remove the tumor. That was followed by two years of chemotherapy.
“Her doctors communicated that she had a tough fight ahead of her and to expect a challenging journey,” McDonald said.
While his family worried that Marlie’s cancer would return, McDonald in 2012was named deputy general counsel at Marathon Oil.
Keane Group made McDonald its general counsel in November 2016, and two months later, he led the corporation’s initial public offering.
A three-year blitz of acquisitions, divestitures, securities offerings and stock buyback efforts followed.
In spring 2019, Wall Street analysts and institutional investors clamored for consolidation in the oil services sector.
“Everyone was looking around for opportunities,” McDonald said. “There was a lot of ‘dating’ going on. Mergers of equals don’t happen very often because these transactions are very challenging to complete.”
All mergers— especially those of equals — face obstacles and challenges, he said.
“We did two or three years worth of work in only a few months,” he said.
As for Marlie Ruth, she turned 9 in fall and is cancer-free.
Two years ago, she was transferred to long-term survivor care.
“It’s a different floor and different attitude,” McDonald said. “Marlie Ruth’s journey is a testament to the power of prayer and the quality of medical care available in our community. She is truly our miracle child and is always full of surprises.”
Marlie is worried about her photo being published with this article because she wants to be an international spy when she grows up.
“She’s afraid a picture of her in the Houston Chronicle could blow her cover,” McDonald explained.