Dave Ridyard was born in Bury, England. His family was rooted in Lancashire, with branches in India, Lebanon, Sri Lanka and Argentina: spinners and weavers, farmers and pharmacists, butchers and entrepreneurs. He was raised by his parents, Joe and Lesley Ridyard, in Bolton, and was fortunate to get a scholarship to a solid grammar school education at Bolton School.
In 1980, Dave graduated from Durham University, at the top of his class, with a degree in Applied Physics and Electronics. In addition to his class work, Dave deejayed the Students Union “Miasma” disco.
After graduating, Dave planned to finance a year off to travel the world by working in the geophysical industry, prior to returning to Durham to do a Ph.D. The Ph.D. never happened. After five years working offshore for GSI in the North Sea, South East Asia, East Canada, West Africa, Brazil and the Gulf of Mexico, Dave had become an expert in marine seismic data acquisition. Dave moved to Dallas in 1984, and settled in Houston in 1986.
After GSI, Dave’s career spanned a modestly successful entrepreneurial adventure with QC Tools, as well as executive roles as President of Oslo Bourse, listed EMGS, and Senior Vice President of NYSE, listed ION Geophysical. Throughout his career, Dave prided himself on remaining current with new technology while bridging the gap between scientists, engineers, executives and managers. One CEO wrote of Dave in a performance review, “Dave’s greatest ability is his ability to think outside the box … it would just be nice if he could remain within sight of the box that the rest of us work within.” Dave’s greatest achievement was to secure and execute a $300M+ contract with PEMEX. Dave “retired” to Novato, in the San Francisco Bay area, in 2016. Three months later, he was bored and co-founded ACTeQ, a small geophysical software company.
Dave made numerous lifelong friendships with classmates from school and university as well as colleagues, partners and mentors within the geophysical industry.
Outside of work, Dave was a keen wildlife photographer and hiker, and he loved to watch and play sports. He was a terrible golfer, and an even worse tennis player. He was less incompetent at chess, squash, racquetball, soccer, table tennis and skiing. His real passion was cricket. In his early career, he was a medium-pace bowler, but in his early thirties he turned to spin – delivering a mixture of mystery spin, quicker balls and nothing balls. His signature delivery was an excruciatingly slow, high, looping “googly”. This was delivered perfectly and captured on video at the 1994 Victoria International Six A Side tournament on Vancouver Island. The ball pitched so wide off stump that the umpire signaled a wide, and the batsman shouldered arms only to watch in shock and awe as the ball turned back and clipped the leg bail.
Dave inherited his mother’s mistrust of extremism in any form, and was a great believer in compromise and moderation in all things. He was immensely frustrated with today’s polarized and uncivil politics.
Throughout his long series of painful surgeries, including double lung and aortic valve transplants, a triple bypass, a sternumectomy, and many more, and all the ensuing indignities, Dave retained a positive outlook, largely as a result of the incredible support of his best friend, part-time nurse and wife, Pauline. They were married in 1994, and worked as a team to raise Joe (born 1996) and Josh (born 1999). He loved grappling with Pauline at their nightly full-contact Jeopardy games.
Dave had no belief in a supreme being or an afterlife, but would be happy to be proved wrong. He left this world happy and confident in the knowledge that in Joe and Josh he has raised two equally fine, though very unique, individuals who are the best legacy a man could possibly have.