Mike Rose and Sue Riddell-Rose

Entrepreneurs Invest in Queen’s

Mike Rose, Artsci’79, and Sue Riddell-Rose, Artsci’86, both studied Geology at Queen’s, but didn’t meet each other until they found themselves working at Shell Canada in Calgary. Both have spent their entire working lives in the oil and gas industry.

Mike founded Berkley Petroleum in 1992. He later moved on to start-up Duvernay Oil Corp. just a few months later. At the forefront of the horizontal drilling and multi-stage frac tight gas technology revolution, shareholder value was created through Duvernay, culminating in the sale of the company to Shell Canada in August 2008. Mike is now President & CEO of his third company, Tourmaline Oil Corp., a rapidly-growing, intermediate-sized oil and gas exploration and production company focused in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin.

Sue left Shell for Paramount Resources in 1990 and today is President & CEO of Perpetual Energy. Perpetual’s office in Calgary has been home to the Western Canada Queen’s Development Office for more than a decade.

Over the years, Mike and Sue have graciously donated to Queen’s to create the Geological Alumni Field Studies program, undergraduate scholarships, and funding for the fitness area of the Athletics and Recreation Centre. In recognition of their generosity, the main floor of the ARC is dedicated to Duvernay Oil. More recent investments are aligned with Queen’s vision to create the new Centre for Innovation in Global Engineering and the exciting new multi-disciplinary Earth Resources Leadership Program. 

Mike regularly returns to Queen’s to take part in the Oil and Gas Speaker Series, an annual, careers-oriented event staged by the Department of Chemical Engineering.

According to Mike and Sue, “Investing in Queen’s is truly investing in the future leaders of the 21st century…and that is, no doubt, a high return, compounding investment worth making.”