Colin Campbell was born in 1931 in Berlin, Germany, but stayed only three months before his father, an architect, returned to his home country as his successful practice in Germany had crashed in the Depression. Colin then had a rather isolated childhood at Chapel Point, a rocky headland in Cornwall in the west of England, where his father was building the first houses of what he hoped to be a model village. But the Second World War brought that project to an end.

School days followed before he succeeded in getting into Oxford University in 1951 to read geology. He enjoyed university life greatly and stayed on to take a D.Phil (Ph.D), based on mapping a remote part of Connemara in Ireland and the interior of Borneo to which he went on a university expedition.

University days came to an end in 1957 and he went on to work for Texaco in Trinidad as a field geologist. There he came under the influence of Hans Kugler, a Swiss scientist who was one of the pioneers of micro-palaeontology and a great inspiration. In 1959, he was transferred to Colombia and had many colourful experiences mapping often bandit-infested remote areas on mule-back, and making a fossil collection to unravel Andean geology.  He married Bobbins, a charming girl he had met in Trinidad, and they were later blessed with a son and daughter.

He continued to work in the oil industry in Colombia, Australia, Papua-New Guinea, the United States, Ecuador, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Norway, ending as an Executive Vice-President. One particularly relevant experience was participation in a world evaluation in 1969 which opened his eyes to the finite nature of the resource and the nature of depletion, which in turn made a deep impression. In latter years he found himself engaged in negotiations to secure oil rights in various countries and came to understand the role of politics and influence both internally within the company and in its external relations. Hisformal career ended in 1989, but he accepted various consulting assignments. He also developed his long interest in depletion founding the Association for the Study of Peak Oil ("ASPO"), which now has associates in more than thirty countries. He has written seven books on the subject as well as many articles in scientific and other publications, which attracted increasing media interest. This led to participation in many conferences and presentations to governments. He and his wife now live in a village in the west of Ireland.