Griff C. Lee

Griff Lee entered the offshore industry with a wave of expansion in the Gulf of Mexico in the late 1940s, when the first permanent structures of any sort to be operated in the open sea were designed and constructed. Working for Exxon and later New Orleans-based J. Ray McDermott, he helped develop the first generation of fixed offshore platforms which were prefabricated onshore, taken by barges to their sites, and then pinned to the ocean floor with piles. Since these first initiatives in the Gulf of Mexico, Lee has remained deeply involved in industry affairs, particularly in the creation of effective design standards through the standing committees of the American Petroleum Institute.