LEADERSHIP
Proven in Practice
The firm's foundation is built upon the experience of its founder, Mike Cargol, whose career spans more than three decades of offshore and deepwater operations. Throughout his career, he has held senior leadership positions with responsibility for global operations, complex organizations, strategic growth initiatives, and full P&L accountability.
Mike played a leadership role in the subsea response to the Deepwater Horizon incident and contributed to the development of the offshore industry's early subsea source control frameworks. Over the past decade, he has overseen the design, readiness, deployment, and operational support of many of the world's capping and containment systems, including those maintained by Oil Spill Response Limited (OSRL), Marine Well Containment Company (MWCC), and HWCG.
His leadership is grounded in direct operational experience across hurricane recovery, marine salvage, well intervention, decommissioning, and subsea source control. His work has spanned major offshore regions around the world, including the Gulf of America, West Africa, the Mediterranean, Brazil, and both the U.S. and Russian Arctic. This experience includes extensive engagement with regulatory agencies, industry organizations, and government stakeholders across multiple jurisdictions.
In addition to his career in the energy industry, Mike served ten years in the Louisiana Air National Guard's 159th Fighter Wing, assigned to the Command and Control Section. In this role, he supported mission planning, operational coordination, and air defense activities. He actively participated in homeland defense operations following the September 11 attacks, an experience that helped shape his leadership philosophy regarding emergency response, crisis management, operational discipline, and organizational readiness.
Mike is the named inventor or co-inventor on 17 U.S. patents covering subsea response methodologies, intervention systems, source control technologies, containment systems, and offshore operational innovations.
This experience is applied directly to client engagements, many of which involve complex, high consequence operating environments where execution risk, regulatory scrutiny, commercial realities, and operational constraints must be carefully balanced. DEEP-C's role is to ensure that strategy remains grounded in operational reality and can be successfully executed in the field.
