Raise your voices engineers: Spring 2025 Commencement at Colorado School of Mines set for May 8-9

Colorado School of Mines will celebrate Spring 2025 Commencement with two days of ceremonies May 8-9.

Continuing a new tradition started with the university’s sesquicentennial in 2024, many spring graduates will don a special hat with their graduation regalia: the Mines Hat, a distinctive hat that dates back to the 19th century as a recognizable symbol of engineers working in the mines and as an expression of pride for Mines graduates. 

Graduate Commencement will kick off the two days of festivities at 3 p.m. May 8 in Lockridge Arena. Undergraduate Commencement will follow on May 9, with ceremonies at 9 a.m., 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. split by academic department. 

Tickets are required to attend Undergraduate and Graduate Commencement for anyone over the age of two. All four ceremonies will be live streamed on the Mines’ YouTube channel.

Two Mines alumni will be giving the keynote address at Undergraduate Commencement: Doug Lawler ’88, president and CEO of Continental Resources, Inc.; and Jackie Haney ’01, CEO and managing partner of UnionRock Partners. Lawler will speak at the 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. ceremonies, and Haney will give the keynote at the 5 p.m. ceremony. 

Doug Lawler ’88

Doug Lawler currently serves as president and CEO at Continental Resources after joining the company in February 2022 as Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President following three decades in the oil and gas industry. He began his career with Kerr-McGee in 1988 and joined Anadarko Petroleum following its acquisition of Kerr-McGee in 2006. He served in numerous senior operational leadership positions during his tenure at Anadarko, including Senior Vice President, International and Deepwater Operations, and member of Anadarko’s Executive Committee from 2012 to 2013; Vice President, International Operations from 2011 to 2012; Vice President, Operations for the Southern and Appalachia Region from 2009 to 2012; and Vice President, Corporate Planning from 2008 to 2009.

Most recently, Lawler was president and CEO and served on the board of directors of Chesapeake Energy Corporation from 2013 to 2021. He has served as a director of Pilot Travel Centers LLC (dba Pilot/Flying J) since 2016. Lawler earned his bachelor’s degree in petroleum engineering from Colorado School of Mines in 1988 and his MBA from Rice University in 2002. 

Jackie Haney ‘01

Jackie Haney is a co-founder and CEO of UnionRock, a private equity firm located in Denver. UnionRock acquires and aggregates direct ownership in oil and natural gas minerals and working interest assets across key onshore U.S. basins.

Before the founding of UnionRock, Haney was a founding member of Copper Trail Partners and Cobalt Oil & Gas, partnering with institutional and family office investors to directly invest in working interest and mineral rights for the past 10 years. From 2007 to 2011, she was manager of acquisitions and divestitures for Venoco, an upstream oil and natural gas company.

Haney began her career at ExxonMobil, followed by five years at Shell Corporation where she played a strategic role in designing, constructing and operating offshore and onshore oil and natural gas assets.

Haney received a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Colorado School of Mines. She was recognized as one of the Top Women in Energy by the Denver Business Journal in 2019. She currently serves on the Board of Governors for the Colorado School of Mines Foundation and as a Board Member and Treasurer of the Laradon Hall Foundation