Roger McCoy is a native Kansan who grew up on a farm near Spivey, Kansas, in Kingman County. He graduated from Attica High School in the mid-1950s and took his first job in the oil industry, driving a tank truck during the summer before he started at the Municipal University of Wichita, later renamed Wichita State University. Roger graduated with a bachelor’s degree in geology in 1959. McCoy’s entire professional career has been in the oil industry. Immediately after graduating from college, he took a job as a staff geologist for Musgrove Petroleum Corporation, working in Kansas, Nebraska, and Oklahoma. In 1962, he began working as an independent consulting geologist, which he continued doing for over a decade until he founded McCoy Petroleum in 1970. While pursuing his career from 1959 to ’61, Roger served in the Kansas Air National Guard, leaving the service at the rank of First Lieutenant Fuels Officer.

Roger McCoy. founder of McCoy Petroleum Corporation with headquarters in Wichita, Ks. , recalls growing up in the oil industry from the late 1950s. Among his observations about the industry are the dynamics of relationships between independent oil companies, like his, and the "majors" like Mobile Oil and Gulf that were active in Kansas. McCoy also observes that environment-related regulation of the industry in Kansas is "justified" and that federal laws impact the industry more than state laws. In his observations, laws that impact pricing and leasing, such as the Kansas Natural Gas Price Protection Act and the Deep Horizons law, have a greater impact on the industry than most of the environmental requirements.