Victor Carrillo

Victor G. Carrillo
Texas Railroad Commissioner
In office January 2009 – January 2011
Governor	Rick Perry
Preceded by	Michael Lawrence Williams
Succeeded by	Elizabeth Ames Jones
Chairman of the Texas Railroad Commission
Born	January 5, 1965 Abilene, Texas (USA)
Nationality	American
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Joy McClellan Carrillo
Children	Laura Elise Taylor, Christina, and Grace Carrillo
Residence	Austin,Texas
Alma mater	Hardin-Simmons University Baylor University University of Houston Law School
Occupation	Geologist, Attorney
Religion	Christian (Abilene Bible Church)

Victor G. Carrillo (born January 5, 1965) is a Texas geologist and politician who was formerly the chairman of his state's Railroad Commission and the county judge of Taylor County.

Background

The son of an immigrant from Mexico, Carrillo is a native of Abilene in Taylor County in West Texas. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in geology from the Southern Baptist-affiliated Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene. He then attended Baylor University in Waco, Texas, where he earned a Master of Science degree, also in geology. From 1988 to 1994 he worked as a petroleum geophysicist for Amoco. He attended law school at night and in 1994 procured his Juris Doctorate from the University of Houston Law Center. From 1994 to 1996, he was an attorney for the Texas General Land Office under the Democratic commissioner Garry Mauro.

Having returned to Abilene in 1996, he taught political science for a time at Hardin-Simmons and served on the city council and as an assistant city attorney while maintaining a law practice. He and his wife, the former Joy McClellan, have three daughters, all home-schooled. While in Abilene, they attended Abilene Bible Church, and Carrillo was a member of the Chamber of Commerce, the Abilene Hispanic Leadership Council, Keep Abilene Beautiful, the Salvation Army, and the board of advisors of the Texas Journal of Oil, Gas, and Energy, published by the University of Texas at Austin School of Law.

Political career

Carrillo was appointed in 2002 as the Taylor county judge, and that same year, he won election to a full four-year term in that position. However, he served less than two months of his elected term before he resigned in February 2003 to accept a gubernatorial appointment to the Texas Railroad Commission, filling a seat vacated by Tony Garza, who had resigned to become U.S. Ambassador to Mexico.

Carrillo joined the Railroad Commission, the state's petroleum, natural gas, and pipeline regulatory body as an appointee of Governor Rick Perry. In 2004 he sought an elective term on the Railroad Commission, failing to win the primary outright, but winning the Republican nomination after a runoff election against the politically unknown Robert Butler. In that year's general election he won a full six-year term on the Commission, having easily defeated Democratic nominee Bob Scarborough.

Carrillo served on the Railroad Commission until 2011, when his elective term ended. He was a candidate for re-nomination in the statewide Republican primary election on March 2, 2010, but he was handily defeated by newcomer David J. Porter, an accountant from Giddings in Lee County, who received 732,892 votes (60.7 percent) to Carrillo's 474,096 (39.3 percent). In the November 2, 2010, general election, Porter then defeated the Democrat Jeff Weems, an oil-and-gas lawyer from Houston.

On his website as Railroad Commission chairman, Carrillo used the slogan "Promoting Texas Energy for All Texans," adding: "Texas is our nation’s premier energy producing state and the Texas energy sector plays a critical role in ensuring domestic energy security. At this critical stage in our nation’s energy security future, we must responsibly drill more in our own backyard to minimize foreign oil and gas imports."