Ms. Stanton was raised in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, then home of Phillips Petroleum Company. She grew up in the oil business as her father worked for Phillips as a tax attorney who travelled internationally assessing the tax structure of the various countries in which Phillips was beginning to explore for and produce oil and gas. After graduating from the University of Oklahoma with a Masters degree in history, Ms. Stanton moved to Houston with her husband when he accepted a job with Exxon Production Research Company. Soon after moving to Houston, Ms. Stanton went to lunch with a college friend and met a newsletter publisher who had an office in the same building in which her friend worked and who wanted to compile and publish the first directory of offshore mobile drilling rigs. Because of her history background, she was hired to create the directory, which was published a year later, and then spent the next twenty years in the offshore oil and gas area as a writer, researcher, and consultant.
Ms. Stanton's timing was fortuitous because oil and gas exploration was beginning to expand beyond land and the shallow waters of the US Gulf Coast and offshore drilling was the new frontier. It was an exciting time with companies experimenting with new offshore mobile drilling rig designs, drilling beyond the continental shelf in deeper and deeper water and venturing into the offshore areas around the world where a drilling rig had never before been seen. Creating a network of news sources throughout the industry was challenging and rewarding and the skills and relationships gained invaluable.
Then came the 1980's oil bust! With a husband working at a major oil company and college for two boys on the horizon, a thought long held by Ms. Stanton evolved into a concrete goal – becoming an attorney. After four years at night law school while continuing to work full time, the goal became a reality. Ms. Stanton has now been practicing law for over twenty-five years in both large and smaller firms using her past work experience in the oil and gas industry and more newly gained knowledge in the commercial real estate industry to serve her clients.