It started with a question most people never think to ask: what exactly happens three kilometers below your feet?

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Jesús Flores came to engineering the way most Venezuelan boys come to football — with obsession and no clear plan. Trained as a mechanical engineer, he was drawn not to factories or bridges but to the one machine complex enough to hold his full attention: an oil rig. The first time he stood on a drill floor, surrounded by the controlled chaos of iron, mud, and pressure, he understood this was where he would spend his life.

His early years were spent in Venezuela's own fields — learning rigs from the bottom up, absorbing the rhythms of drilling, the language of formation tops, the feel of torque changes that tell an experienced driller something unexpected is happening a mile underground. He was good, and the industry noticed. By his late twenties, Jesús had been recruited into the global machine — working with Schlumberger, the most technically demanding services company in the world, then supporting operations for majors including ConocoPhillips, BP, Equinor, and ExxonMobil.

The world became his training ground. And horizontal drilling became his specialty.