As voting in the election of the 2024-2025 Executive Committee begins, AAPG Members might wonder why there are three candidates for president-elect and for secretary.
The answer is found in Article IV, Section 4 of the AAPG Bylaws:
“The advisory council shall annually recommend two or more candidates for each of the available offices, and shall report to the executive committee by November 15 of each year.
The executive committee shall approve the ballot, which shall include two candidates for each available office except for editor, which shall be one or two candidates …
Candidates shall be announced to members via email on or before December 1. Additional nominations may be made by written petition or email of fifty (50) or more Members in good standing received by the executive director at Association headquarters not later than January 31.”
While both paths are rich traditions of AAPG, and the outcome of the election might be the same, the nomination processes are fundamentally different.
One of my responsibilities as chair of the Advisory Council is to work with the 17 elected or appointed councilors to prepare the slate of candidates that is recommended to the Executive Committee. This involves review of the form completed by each nominator describing the fit of the nominee for the office and the nominee’s qualifications based on both their professional career and their AAPG career, a statement signed by each nominee agreeing to serve, and up to three letters of support for each nominee. This vetting succeeds through the dedication of our member-volunteers to thoughtfully consider the nominations and reach consensus about which of the nominees will best serve AAPG and its members.
This year, two people were added to the ballot through the petition process.
The petition process involves a different type of vetting – the direct endorsement of at least 50 Members willing to add their signatures to a petition. This means that potential candidates receive immediate feedback from their peers when they decide whether to sign a petition.
Other organizations have a similar petition process, notably the Society of Petroleum Engineers, whose most recent ballot included three petition candidates. The SPE recently strengthened its petition process to increase from 1 percent to 2 percent of eligible membership the number of signatures required for a candidate to be placed on the ballot as a technical or regional director. Petition candidates for president-elect must gather signatures from at least 1 percent of the eligible membership.
As you prepare to vote, please avail yourself of the information about all candidates published in the March EXPLORER and the candidate interviews linked to the AAPG website. Ultimately, the vetting that matters most is your consideration of which candidates will best serve AAPG and its members.