Activities Accelerating for DPA
Professional Initiatives on Agenda
Because of publication deadlines I am writing this column in early March, knowing it will be published soon after the Annual Convention in Long Beach. We have had a good -- and busy --fall and winter that include:
- Editor Bob Shoup publishing an excellent and thought-provoking DPA Correlator. I hope you have read the articles and the editorials.
- We held elections for Advisory Council representatives for next year and are in the midst of our elections for our next Executive Committee with a very strong slate of candidates.
- At our winter mid-year meeting in Dallas, an effort headed by George Bole to recognize our founding members was launched. DPA sent out letters of recognition and a pen to these fine members and it has been my pleasure to hear from many of these fine supporters of DPA.
- We also have sent letters to the members of AAPG who are registered in Texas but not certified, and I have approved a good number of new applicants -- and some reinstatements -- to DPA, all forwarded to me by Royce Carr and his very fine committee.
- We have approved our first group of Board Certified geoscientists and have approved the form for recording CEU’s online.
All of this should continue to keep our organization strong and financially sound into the future.
The advisory council will meet in Long Beach, discuss several important issues and try to come to a consensus. I will discuss several of these here:
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Because of publication deadlines I am writing this column in early March, knowing it will be published soon after the Annual Convention in Long Beach. We have had a good -- and busy --fall and winter that include:
- Editor Bob Shoup publishing an excellent and thought-provoking DPA Correlator. I hope you have read the articles and the editorials.
- We held elections for Advisory Council representatives for next year and are in the midst of our elections for our next Executive Committee with a very strong slate of candidates.
- At our winter mid-year meeting in Dallas, an effort headed by George Bole to recognize our founding members was launched. DPA sent out letters of recognition and a pen to these fine members and it has been my pleasure to hear from many of these fine supporters of DPA.
- We also have sent letters to the members of AAPG who are registered in Texas but not certified, and I have approved a good number of new applicants -- and some reinstatements -- to DPA, all forwarded to me by Royce Carr and his very fine committee.
- We have approved our first group of Board Certified geoscientists and have approved the form for recording CEU’s online.
All of this should continue to keep our organization strong and financially sound into the future.
The advisory council will meet in Long Beach, discuss several important issues and try to come to a consensus. I will discuss several of these here:
- One agenda item is formalizing the processes for development, approval and review of our AAPG Position Papers.
As many of you realize, these are generally formulated in the DPA Government Affairs Committee (GAC); an author or authors are suggested and asked to prepare positions while researching the topic. The GAC then reviews and edits, and then the position is presented to the DPA president and the Advisory Council for DPA approval. The document is only then submitted to the Executive Committee or other divisions for approval or revision.
This process results in thoroughly vetted positions that certainly can be dated by the time this lengthy process is completed. We intend to codify the described process and then a periodic review of our accepted positions so that dated material can be freshened.
Many of our past positions are in response to specific government actions or proposed actions, and the political climate or proposed legislative agendas do change necessitating our periodic review. DPA president-elect Thomas Ewing has made a good start on a draft version of our procedures, which we will vote on as a group prior to forwarding to the AAPG president.
- We also will review the ongoing efforts at joint society cooperation to develop training for reserve evaluators with a report by Dan Tearpock.
This important effort with the WPC, SPE, SPEE and others is designed to improve the reporting of reserves in all reporting systems and countries by improving the skills and training of the evaluator. We have a Washington, D.C., meeting set in late June to publicize these initiatives to government and the public.
DPA also will be well represented in late April in Washington at Congressional Visit Days; Don Juckett has been a joy to work with this year and has been organizing this event and meetings with congressional staff and representatives for our DPA and AAPG delegation.
Much of the legislation proposed this year is punitive and misguided (as predicted last fall), and our effort is to educate these policymakers about our science and industry. The real “Inconvenient Truth” is that only in a climate of ignorance and fear can some of this legislation be approved and we must try to educate those who will listen.
This is my last column and I must thank Divisions manager Norma Newby for all her efforts, support and friendship this year. Norma makes anyone who holds office look good through her tireless work on our behalf.
It has been an honor to be your president for this year and I have enjoyed working with so many good and hard working volunteers who keep the DPA and AAPG strong.
DPA is the reason many of us belong to AAPG and I appreciate all of you who keep us moving forward. AAPG and DPA are filled with individuals and scientists of high integrity and intellect but radically varying political opinions and views.
I hope we all remain committed to defending our science and the oil and gas extraction industry against those who would weaken or destroy what has served mankind well.