Steven Larkin was just beginning his career when he experienced something unforgettable.

That experience? Helping discover the oil and gas potential of an offshore field, now called Tahiti, in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico. This feat remains a professional highlight, 26 years later.

"I had a mentor who said to me, 'I want you to understand that this doesn't happen very often, and it may never happen again in your career,'" recalled Larkin, who was a geophysicist at the time. "I took that to heart."

Larkin, now a Chevron subsurface assurance earth science consultant, has since moved on from Tahiti. But he remains impressed with all that Chevron has accomplished there since those early days.