by If you happen to be viewing Taylor Sheridan’s “Landman” and Kathy Robertson is in the room, she might laugh at a few things she sees.
The senior vice president at PlainsCapital Bank knows a lot more about being a landman than her fictional counterpoint played by Arkansas-born actor Billy Bob Thornton.
Robertson is herself a landman, somewhat unique as one of slightly more than the 25% who are women. She also knows a bit about the series from behind the scenes, having worked as an extra in a season 2 episode. The series has been filmed primarily in and around Fort Worth, including downtown and Texas Christian University.
“I don’t even play a landman in it,” Robertson said. “I play a rich oil man’s wife, which is hilarious.”
Robertson has plenty of expertise in the energy space as a Fort Worth-based certified mineral manager and registered petroleum landman.
A landman is a member of the exploration and production team who negotiates directly with landowners to acquire leases for the exploration and development of minerals or other energy sources. Some landmen work in-house for a specific company while others are independent.
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She has spent 20 years in the industry and continues to be involved in her current role at the bank. Robertson specializes in managing oil and gas trust accounts, assisting clients to maximize their mineral rights while navigating the financial complexities of the energy sector.
In a field where about 27% of landmen are women — while the moniker remains unchanged — Robertson has built a successful career blending energy expertise with financial strategy. She also serves on the Texas Bankers Association oil and gas and real estate committees, the board of the National Association of Royalty Owners of Texas, and is a member of the American Association of Petroleum Landmen, the national organization of landmen based in Fort Worth.
The Paramount+ series was co-created by Sheridan and Christian Wallace, host of the Texas Monthly “Boomtown” podcast that inspired the TV show. The podcast and the series focus on the world of West Texas oil and gas, particularly the people who live and work in the Permian Basin.
The show was a hit, viewed by 14.9 million worldwide, making it the most watched Paramount+ original series and renewing interest in the industry, said Andrea Spencer, director of communications for the American Association of Petroleum Landmen.
“We are seeing an influx in interest due to the ‘Landman’ TV series,” she said.
Spencer said it will probably be another year before they see an impact on membership from both the series and the organization’s own educational video, “
The Path of the Landman
,” and its “
Landman Now
” podcast. As of now, the organization reports 11,396 members recorded at the end of 2023.
From Ladies of the Lamb to ‘Landman’
Beyond her industry work, Robertson is an active supporter of Friends of the Fort Worth Herd and the Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo, where she’s a member of Ladies of the Lamb. It was that latter association with the organization of business women and entrepreneurs who raise funds to support Texas 4-H and FFA students that brought her from the world of real landmen to Sheridan’s make-believe world of landmen who, among other things, find themselves kidnapped by drug cartels and occasionally staring down the business end of firearms.
Robertson made clear none of that happened in her career, where instead she spent a lot of time learning the ins and outs of rural courthouses and doing deed searches.
Still, she was glad to see her under-the-radar profession get some love from Hollywood, particularly since the show was from Sheridan who grew up in Texas and graduated from Fort Worth’s Paschal High School.
So when producers of the series approached the Ladies of the Lamb seeking extras for some scenes, Robertson was more than happy to get involved, even more so when it meant basically a short stroll from her office at 3707 Camp Bowie Blvd.
“They were seeking extras and they were filming a scene right across the street from my office, at the Bowie House, so it was perfect,” she said.
The scene in question involved a party and she was cast as an oil man’s wife.
She was called back a few weeks later for more filming for the same scene and was requested to wear the same dress she had worn before. It was a glimpse into the unreal world of filmmaking.
‘A lot of exposure’
While the show is titled “Landman,” Billy Bob Thornton’s character, Norris, is more of an oil company project manager, Robertson said.
“There are some landman aspects to what he is doing, but he’s doing much more than that. Still, it’s a great title for a show and I think it’s given a lot of exposure to what it takes to get a drilling project off the ground,” she said. “I don’t think a lot of people understand that. I certainly didn’t before I got into the industry.”
Robertson was married with a family when she decided she wanted to sell real estate around 2005.
One of the people she met while selling was involved in the energy industry when the Barnett Shale drilling boom was in its infancy, around 2007. That meeting inspired her to make the leap from real estate to helping companies acquire mineral rights from landowners.
“At first it was slow, then it just took off and we had people lined up down the street wanting us to lease their minerals,” she said.
At first, leases were about $1,000 an acre for a bonus, then jumped to $5,000, then $10,000 and more as energy companies like XTO Energy and Chesapeake Energy vied with their thick wallets for leases in Fort Worth and the surrounding area.
Robertson took classes at the TCU Energy Institute to get certified as a landman.
“I just fell in love with it,” she said. “It was so much fun.”
Naturally outgoing, Robertson enjoyed meeting people, getting to know employees in the records offices and, at times, seeing people get good royalties and bonuses for their mineral rights.
From boom to bust
But like most oil and gas booms, the Barnett Shale eventually became a victim of its own success as natural gas prices cratered. Many companies headed to Pennsylvania where the Marcellus Shale play became the place to be.
Robertson, who had a daughter in high school, didn’t want to uproot her family. Still, she didn’t know what her next move was going to be.
“I literally was drinking coffee in bed one morning and looking on Monster — that’s what you did then — said a prayer and threw out my resume to five companies,” she said. “One called back and it was Petrodata Business Systems in Arlington at the time.”
Petrodata, now known as PDS Companies, was an early developer of software for accounting applications in managing real estate and oil and gas assets.
“So I got to see the other side of it,” she said. “That got me out of the title work part of the business and into the property management side.”
Robertson also began working with banks at that time, who often did property management for their clients.
“I learned so much working with them,” she said. “It really set me up for what I do now.”
She was commuting to work in Arlington but still living in the Arlington Heights area of Fort Worth when she heard that PlainsCapital Bank was looking for someone to provide mineral management for individuals, bank trusts, foundations and families.
She began her work in 2015 and cut her commute from several miles to basically around the corner from her home.
“I’m not doing landman work every day, but I still do title research,” she said. “I’m more of an account manager, property manager. I love working with people and that I still get to do.”
Some of her landman work involved her family. During the Barnett Shale boom, she learned that her father had reserved half the minerals on properties he sold in Parker County.
It’s that combination of business, history and her own ancestry that keeps Robertson interested in what she does as a landman and, now as a banker.
“I have abstracts from 1849 from my family ranch there,” she said. “So it’s part of my history and I find that fascinating to get to know more about where we came from.”
Bob Francis is business editor for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at
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