Top Energy Training

Rick Tallini 

President, Otto Cupler Torpedo Company Inc.
BSEE, University of Massachusetts Lowell

This year marks my 50th year in the explosives business. The adventure began in 1967 when I joined the United States Air Force and served as a weapons and munitions mechanic both domestically and at various overseas bases. I loaded conventional and nuclear weapons on fighter aircraft and was honorably discharged as a Staff Sergeant in 1971. I then earned a BSEE degree from the University of Lowell Mass in 1974 and went to work for Hercules Inc as a technical explosives sales representative. In the years since I have worked for Harrison Explosives, Controlled Energy Specialists, Northern Ohio Explosives and, of course, Otto Cupler Torpedo Co. In all those years I have performed explosives work in quarry, surface mining of coal, underground mining of coal and non-coal, demolition, open hearth steel mill hot furnace blasting, construction, trenching and of course oil & gas well shooting. My participation in the oil & gas Industry started in the late 1970s. I became very interested in the history of the oil & gas industry in 1985 when I purchased a controlling interest in Otto Cupler Torpedo Co, the world’s oldest oil & gas well service company.