How Two Former Fighter Pilots Launched A Multi-Million Oil Business

Palmares Energy

Navy veteran Mike Brown and business partner Jay Consalvi created a high-revenue, ultra-lean business investing in oil and gas.

Learn from the pros. Investing in oil and gas isn’t something easily mastered by reading up on it alone. Like many entrepreneurs who eventually start high-revenue, ultra-lean businesses, Brown and Consalvi learned by doing, as employees of a company in their field. “That’s better than an MBA,” says Brown.

After his tour of duty, Brown, a 2003 graduate of the Naval Academy at Annapolis, moved to Midland, Texas, where he was from, to join a firm involved in oil and gas mineral and royalty acquisitions. One of his mentors was president of the firm. “He said right now is the best time in the history of the oil business to be in the oil business," Brown recalls. Brown had soon persuaded Consalvi to join him at the firm.

Working there for two years, the duo learned how to identify properties where minerals were likely to be discovered and to do the financial calculations involved in deal-making. When they got the itch to start their own business, their former bosses were supportive. They went into business in December of 2012.

A decade ago Mike Brown and Jay Consalvi met while flying fighter jets on combat missions for the Navy in the Persian Gulf. Today, the 37-year-old veterans work side by side on a different type of high-adrenaline pursuit: investing in oil and gas on land where it hasn't yet been discovered.

The business, Palmares Energy in Golden, Colo., is involved in oil and gas investment. Brown and Consalvi buy minerals from operators who have secured the right to drill a well on a given property, with the goal of amassing many such properties and ultimately, bundling them into an attractive package to sell to institutional investors. “It’s a version of real estate at the end of the day,” says Brown.

Brown and Consalvi, both 37, are among a growing number of entrepreneurs who have managed to break $1 million in revenue before hiring employees. The U.S. Census Bureau found there were 35,584 nonemployer firms that brought in $1 million to $2.49 million in 2015, up 33% since 2011. Nonemployer firms are those where the owners are the only employees. Mostly they’re solo businesses, but some, like Palmares Energy, are run by partners.

So how did Brown and Consalvi pull it off? Here are some of the strategies that worked for them.

Palmares Energy

Navy veteran Mike Brown and business partner Jay Consalvi created a high-revenue, ultra-lean business investing in oil and gas.

After his tour of duty, Brown, a 2003 graduate of the Naval Academy at Annapolis, moved to Midland, Texas, where he was from, to join a firm involved in oil and gas mineral and royalty acquisitions. One of his mentors was president of the firm. “He said right now is the best time in the history of the oil business to be in the oil business," Brown recalls. Brown had soon persuaded Consalvi to join him at the firm.

Working there for two years, the duo learned how to identify properties where minerals were likely to be discovered and to do the financial calculations involved in deal-making. When they got the itch to start their own business, their former bosses were supportive. They went into business in December of 2012.

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