About
I've spent most of my career on the inside.
As the controller who had to produce the number, defend it to an auditor, and explain it to a lender who had already made up his mind.
That's the perspective I bring to SLW Services.
For 25 years I built and led accounting functions inside oil and gas, real estate development, manufacturing, and financial services companies. Monthly closes. Multi-entity consolidations. System conversions that had to land while the business kept running. Audits, PCAOB conversions, and the kind of capital project reporting where a bad number costs somebody real money.
Nine of those years were spent as a midstream energy controller — Meritage Midstream, MarkWest, and High Sierra — running the books for gas processing, gathering, marketing, terminaling, and a FERC-regulated NGL pipeline. Acquisitions, greenfield buildouts, a cross-border divestiture, and six straight years of clean audits.
Now I do that work fractionally, for owner-led companies that have outgrown their back office but aren't ready — or don't need — a full-time CFO.
Before the practice
Prior operating roles
These were employee roles, not client engagements — which is why they carry numbers the fractional work can't.
| Company | Role | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Meritage Midstream | Controller · 2013–2019 | Two PE-backed entities, $800M in commitments · $200M Thunder Creek acquisition · $400M greenfield buildout · $600M CAD divestiture · FERC-regulated NGL pipeline · team of 13 |
| Sustainable Living Innovations | Controller & Treasurer · 2019–present | Two SPAC reverse merger processes · AICPA-to-PCAOB audit conversion · 18-subsidiary consolidation · NetSuite and Vena implementations |
| MarkWest · High Sierra · First Data · Aimco · Arthur Andersen | 1999–2013 | 42-entity consolidation and close cycle · Keystone Midstream acquisition · Oracle consolidation across 30+ midstream entities · Hyperion HFM implementation · $500M REIT loan portfolio |
Education
Colorado State University
BS, Business Administration — accounting emphasis, 1999. Career began in public accounting at Arthur Andersen, auditing energy and financial services clients.
Based in
Highlands Ranch, Colorado
Working remotely with clients across the country, with the cadence and responsiveness of someone in the building.
The trade
A deliberately small client list
I keep the number of concurrent engagements low on purpose. There's no account handoff and no junior staff on your file — the person you talk to is the person doing the work.
You don't get a bench. You get direct senior attention, all year, which is the only thing that makes December through April manageable.
If your books are technically fine but nobody quite trusts them, let's talk.
A first conversation is a straightforward one: what you have now, what people keep asking you for, and where the gap is. No pitch deck.
Email stuart@slwservices.co See how engagements start