About us & Diversification
R.S. "Bud" Johnson
Maverick Royalty is under the direction of R.S. "Bud" Johnson, a Texas Licensed Petroleum Geologist along with Mr. Adam Wise, Paddock Wood, Kent, England. Assisting Mr. Johnson is John Wurz with over 25 years experience with Lone Star Gas / Enserch, Don Wilson over 25 years San Angelo, Texas Police Department Detective (Land, Title and Background) and Simone Brooks, 10 years US Navy- aerial reconnaissance.
Click here to download Bud's CV in PDF format.
Diversification: Maverick Royalty is diversified in oil and gas and real estate with an emphasis on tourism (please see the links below for an example). Mr. Johnson is also active in ranching operations. Using his geological background, he developed an innovative livestock rotation program for the ranch based on the likely natural development of grasses and buffalo on the native rangelands. This resulted in an 80% decrease in feed costs. Mr. Wise has extensive farming and investment background in southeast England.
Terlingua House Guest House
Abbey's Ruidoso Cabin
About the Name: "Maverick" - most people associate the term maverick with someone who does things differently, eccentric, risky even, not the normal course. The word actually stems from a man named Samuel A. Maverick an early Texas pioneer, attorney and politician. Before Texas was a State, a budding country, it didn't have much money and needed people to move to Texas, it is difficult collecting taxes from coyotes. Before there could be proper ownership for people, the land needed to be surveyed. So the story goes that Mr. Maverick won the surveying bid to provide surveys along some of the primary rivers including the Colorado and Brazos. The trade seems to be that Mr. Maverick was awarded 1 survey for every 3 or 4 surveys provided. Mr. Maverick likely delegated and paid for someone else to do the actual surveying. Regardless, this probably resulted in Mr. Maverick becoming the "land baron" he is known for.
Most land is surveyed in sections - one square mile, 640 acres. Mr. Maverick and the other early Texas politicians were quite innovative and designed their sections to be 1/2 mile by 2 miles, still 640 acres, but one of the 1/2 mile sides was along the river frontage. This allowed Texas to sell twice as many tracts or sections all with river frontage (access to water). After these lands were surveyed and sold with some being settled and fenced, Mr. Maverick "stocked" his lands, meaning he turned out livestock on his numerous unfenced properties. To the original settlers with fenced properties, an unbranded and unmarked bovine of any sort was likely owned by Mr. Maverick - it was "a maverick".
The preceding story is West Texas hearsay and folklore, I have never tried to follow it up but my grandfather was born in 1878 and 30 years later was working for an English owned ranch breaking and training horses for the cavalry. Growing up on a ranch I always knew the term maverick as applied to livestock not to humans. It wasn't until much later that I heard a person being referred to as a maverick.
My present connotation of maverick is one who is unconfined, unbranded, a free thinker and an innovator.