About Us

Our Story

What does ARK Stand for?

There are a few reasons Blake Fraley chose ARK as the name of his company. The primary reason are the initials of his 3 girls—Audrey, Reagan, and Kennedy. They are his world and the reason he does what he does.

The other reason is all of the similarities between the story of Noah’s Ark in Genesis and our founding story:

  1. Having faith to build something (even in the face of adversity)

  2. Listening to careful instructions and following your heart (be present and trust convictions)

  3. Preparing and weathering for a storm (make a plan and execute)

  4. Trusting in the vision and making/keeping promises (love others and do what we say we’ll do)

Why Partners?

Being partners is so important to ARK, we included it in the company name. We truly want to create and develop shared interests and want you to have trust that we’re building a lasting relationship. ARK avoids the transactional, “what can you do for me” relationship that some may have experienced. Instead, we view our partnership as a long-term alliance where we “do what’s best for our clients”.

Previous Experience

The ARK team has experience in industries like energy, health and life sciences, and aerospace and defense. Indeed, nearly 12 years of our experience has been in the energy software domain and includes the following (and so much more):

  1. Project management including building out a project management office (PMO) with best practices and standardized processes

  2. Optimizing business processes to help scale teams and companies navigate change management

  3. Performing software regression testing to quickly identify issues with software upgrades

  4. Helped converted more than 15 clients from Quorum Tips to W Energy Software

  5. Building Microsoft Excel templates including variance analysis templates and professional services automation (PSA) tools

  6. Midstream plant accounting industry best practices

  7. Designing and testing software enhancements, reports and dashboards (analytics), and interfaces

  8. Technical experience with software including W Energy Software, Atlassian Jira, SalesForce, SQL, BigTime, PivotalTracker, and IBM Cognos

  9. Training including on-site and remote on several topics

  10. Vendor and software selection

Our Team

Blake Fraley

Chief Executive Officer

Blake Fraley started his career with Deloitte Consulting where he worked as a SAP ABAP software developer, report developer, and project coordinator for a PMO team. In 2012, Blake joined Waterfield Energy (now W Energy Software) as the first implementation consultant where he helped build processes and procedures influencing how software implementations would work for the next decade. After multiple promotions with progressive responsibilities, he became the youngest executive of the company, as the Vice President of Professional Services in 2022. Throughout his career at W Energy Software, he held unique roles where he was responsible for both sales and building a Professional Services team to deliver what was promised. Working with so many great clients and teammates defined and instilled the mantra of “doing the right thing for his clients,” which he carries on that legacy with the creation of ARK Consulting Partners, LLC.

When Blake isn’t teaching Excel shortcut keys to strangers, he enjoys pool time with his family, playing tennis, and refereeing high school and collegiate soccer games.

Blake earned a B.S. in Management of Information Systems with a Minor in Marketing from Oklahoma State University.