Tom Barger: A lasting legacy that helped shape a nation

Into the unknown

Just six years out of college, the young Barger faced the grueling challenges of the Great Depression, which had sent the U.S. economy into a tailspin and severely limited employment opportunities in the mid-1930s.

After graduation, he worked as a surveyor and miner in Canada, then as an engineer, assistant manager of a radium mine, and even as an associate professor of mining at his alma mater, the University of North Dakota, at the age of just 26.

It was while working in mining that he received a letter from the Standard Oil Company of California (SOCAL), inviting him to interview for a position as a surveyor with a seismographic crew in Saudi Arabia.

Barger made a strong impression — and just five weeks later, he was in al-Khobar, receiving that unusual welcome from Steineke.

Thrust straight into action, he traversed the depths of the Arabian desert, deep into the Rub' al Khali. There, he joined senior geologist Jerry Harriss in conducting geological reconnaissance across 40,000 square miles — where no Westerner had ever set foot.

Barger was at the heart of the action. His field trips across an unforgiving desert led to the discovery of outcrops that overlay producing zones, uncovering oil reserves that would become the lifeblood of a flourishing nation.

Assisted by the legendary guide Khamis bin Rimthan — whom Barger called the “guide of guides” — he and his fellow pioneers were making history.

 

Bin Rimthan’s navigational skills were legendary. Barger recalls that on one occasion while traveling with the guide in the desert, Bin Rimthan asked him if the North Star had moved. “At first I didn’t know what he meant, but he explained that some more and said that as far as he could tell, the North Star wasn’t in the proper place. Since he had never been this far south, I assumed at the tine because we were in an unknown country, maybe his built-in compass was a bit off. It wasn’t until many years after that I realized that he was indeed right, having travelled about three degrees of latitude or more than two hundred miles further south than he had ever been, Khamis was now seeing the North Star from a completely different angle, and it would be right to say that it had moved. I doubt that there are more than a half a dozen men on earth that would have noticed the difference."

A community is born 

Yet despite throwing himself wholeheartedly into this Arabian adventure, something was missing.

Just three weeks before departing for Saudi Arabia, Barger had married Kathleen Ray on November 18, 1937.

The newlyweds expected to be apart only briefly — but World War II and housing shortages in Dhahran meant Kathleen would wait seven long years before she could join her husband.

Although Barger took leave in 1940 and 1943 for short visits, Kathleen’s own adventure began in earnest in 1945.

She was joined by other wives of SOCAL employees and their children, whose presence transformed Dhahran’s dynamic. Male workers could rough it in cramped, rugged housing — but families needed a “home away from home” if they were to stay.

 

Thus, the Dhahran community was born. Kathleen and her husband eventually raised six children — Ann, Michael, Tim, Mary, Norah, and Teresa — in this unique environment, a blend of the familiar and the exotic. The camp featured American-style schools, and their backyard was the vast, open desert. It wasn’t just the geologists who were pioneers — the families were, too.

 

They laid the groundwork for a community that would become home to thousands of families over the coming decades. Future generations, like theirs, would grow up with a unique worldview, understanding Saudi Arabia not as some distant abstraction, but as the tangible landscape of their youth, in all its beauty and complexity.

 

Kathleen was also a keen horse rider, and she played a major role in organizing the Hobby Farm horse stables in Dhahran.

A lasting legacy 

Barger had truly embraced the land. His exploration work took him the length and breadth of the Kingdom, often in the company of Bin Rimthan. With such an illustrious guide, Barger developed a strong command of Arabic and a deep appreciation for Bedouin culture — rare skills for a Westerner in the Kingdom at that time. These abilities allowed him to forge genuine relationships with Saudi leaders and local communities alike.

This unique skill set proved invaluable when he moved into government relations in 1940, where diplomacy reigned supreme. It was a world away from geology, but Barger mastered this new craft, navigating the complex and evolving relationship between the American oil company and the Kingdom. His diplomatic talents shone, leading to his appointment as vice president of Government Relations in 1958. The following year, he became president of Aramco.

Just two years later, he was named CEO, and eventually chairman of the board in 1968, retiring a year later.

In many ways, Tom Barger and his family embodied the heart of what Aramco stands for. When he joined the search for oil in 1937, the company had 600 employees. By the time he retired, Aramco employed 11,000 people and produced over a billion barrels of oil per year. Throughout his career, Barger never lost sight of the people behind the numbers—he believed deeply in trust, respect, and cross-cultural understanding.

Aramco now has around 75,000 employees and world-class operational and community facilities.

Barger passed away in 1986. His life at Aramco was more than a job — it was a nation-building endeavor. What began as an epic adventure continues today; his legacy is visible across the Kingdom. He remains a symbol of a bygone era that still echoes to the present, reminding us that behind vast pipelines and refineries are the stories of individuals who built lives in the sand, forever bridging two cultures.