Academy of Distinguished Alumni

  • Alumni Image #1:
  • Image Caption Title #1: Jubilee Oil Field
  • Image Caption #1: Work to date has included the Jubilee oil development offshore Ghana, LNG projects in Papua New Guinea and Mozambique, deepwater drilling projects in Brazil and the US Gulf of Mexico, and upgrading a major oil field in Kazakhstan. Clients range from ExxonMobil to Anadarko Petroleum to IFC.
  • Alumni Image #2:
  • Image Caption Title #2: Deepwater Rig Visit
  • Image Caption #2: Motherwell has over 30 years of professional experience in the U.S., Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia working on major engineering projects including oil and gas developments, offshore structures, power plants, coal and metal mines, and hazardous waste facilities.
headshot of Jonathan Motherwell

jonathan t. motherwell

Jonathan T. Motherwell

M.S., University of Texas at Austin, 1976
B.S., Missouri University of Science & Technology, 1974


Jonathan Motherwell is a consulting engineer with more than 35 years of experience in the environmental and geotechnical engineering fields. He has worked on numerous projects around the world related with the oil and gas, mining, power, and chemical manufacturing industries and is recognized for his leadership contributions related to the permitting of numerous major projects by integrating civil, environmental and social considerations.

Motherwell received his BSCE degree in 1974 from the University of Missouri-Rolla (now the Missouri University of Science and Technology).He earned his MSCE degree from UT Austin and credits his professors – Roy Olson, Steve Wright, Ken Stokoe, and Lymon Reese – with helping to launch and support his career.

He started his career with D’Appolonia Consulting Engineers in Brussels, Belgium and focused on project siting and development in Europe and the Middle East. After moving to Houston for a project assignment, he also became involved with contamination and remediation projects in the U.S. and Latin America. He has held senior positions with several major consulting and engineering companies including Dames & Moore, URS, and ERM. At Dames & Moore, he served as manager of the firm’s Houston office and subsequently helped open several offices to form a Gulf Coast region.

Following URS’s acquisition of Dames & Moore, he served as a Senior VP for services to the petroleum industry, involving a portfolio of $100M of services annually and coordinating staff around the globe. He was recruited to ERM and led the firm’s global practice for oil and gas clients as senior partner.

Since forming his own company in 2008, Motherwell has focused on project siting, development and construction in a sustainable manner which integrates engineering, environmental and social issues. This includes satisfying the environmental and social performance standards of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group. Recent assignments include projects in Texas, Ghana, Mozambique, Papua New Guinea, Kazakhstan and Brazil working for oil & gas companies and international financial institutions.