“AAPG needs a new narrative,” I told the AAPG Foundation Trustee Associates last month at their annual meeting. “The AAPG Foundation can and is supporting the Association in its evolution.”
Glenn Tecker, a consultant who studies professional associations and other non-profit organizations, has observed that associations – like humans – experience a lifecycle. The organization proceeds over time through a predictable set of life stages: from conception and infancy, through puberty and into adulthood, eventually arriving at adulthood and finally old age.
For AAPG, conception began more than a century ago, in 1917. In 1986, AAPG’s membership reached its all-time peak, representing adulthood. Now, nearly 40 years later, our Association has reached old age.
Unlike humans, however, associations have a chance to turn the clock back, to revitalize themselves. They have a chance to review current conditions and market trends and to develop a new path to serve the needs of its members today and into the future.
That must be our focus.
The Fork in the Road Before Us
As this issue of EXPLORER goes to press, the House of Delegates have just met to debate and vote on a set of revised Bylaws that would take AAPG’s geographically-focused representation and expand it to include a technical focus. Our members say the two interests they value most are science and technology and community – the proposed model sets up a volunteer structure to better deliver exactly those elements.
If on May 31, the HoD voted affirmatively to adopt the new Bylaws, the document will be sent to the membership for its vote this month. If the HoD vote fails or the members do not support the proposal, it’s not back to business as usual. The persistent decades-long declines in membership and the continuing challenges to demonstrate relevance to a new generation of geoscientists require different thinking than what has gotten us here.
AAPG needs a new narrative.
The Road So Far
In 2015, the shale bubble burst, initiating significant industry contraction that severely impacted AAPG finances. A prevailing narrative would have you believe that everyone in leadership – both elected and staff – were just sitting around watching it happen. This is incorrect.
The Executive Committees led by President John Hogg and President Paul Britt authorized and supported a significant restructuring of AAPG’s staff operations in Tulsa to reduce expenses. While there was discussion of reducing program activity at this time, the only program eliminated was AAPG’s office in Washington, DC.
In 2018, AAPG’s operating environment remained difficult, but the investment portfolio was growing thanks to significant stock market appreciation. The Executive Committee led by President Charles Sternbach authorized staff to fully fund and terminate the defined benefit pension fund, which had been frozen in 2009. This came at a significant cost but removed a long-term financial liability from AAPG’s balance sheet.
President Denise Cox recognized the emergence of carbon capture, utilization and storage as a topic of interest to energy geoscientists in 2019, and we began planning an AAPG event on CCUS. It was authorized by President Mike Party and the event subsequently expanded to include the Society of Petroleum Engineers and the Society of Exploration Geophysicists. Successive events in Houston have been both technically and commercially successful.
Last month, this partnership launched an event in Rio de Janeiro with nearly 500 attendees (see related article on page 46).
As the COVID pandemic closed in during 2020, President Party and President-elect Rick Fritz worked with staff to conduct a review of all possible new product ideas that could drive additional revenue. This work became the basis from which, in 2023-24, the Boost Income Greatly (B.I.G.) Committee began its work.
Later that year, in the face of a severe contraction in revenue, President Fritz and the Executive Committee authorized a further staff restructuring and we reduced some business activity to accommodate those changes.
Between 2014 and late 2023, total staffing levels were reduced 60 percent, with most programs remaining in-place and new activities being added.
Also in 2020 and 2021, Bryan Haws, AAPG’s controller and director of corporate services, spent countless evenings and weekends working with our bankers and external consultants to ensure that AAPG took advantage of the government offerings, such as the Payroll Protection Program loans and Employee Retention Credits, made available to businesses whose activity was impacted by COVID. This provided essential cashflow of $2.4 million to maintain AAPG during these challenging circumstances.
My point is not that we’ve solved AAPG’s financial challenges – they and the headwinds causing them persist. The point is that throughout the past decade, your AAPG leadership has been focused and engaged to respond to those challenges.
AAPG needs a new narrative.
A Possible Road Ahead
I shared with the Foundation Trustee Associates that there are serious initiatives underway to address AAPG’s financial challenges.
- AAPG governance must continue to evolve with the current proposal the culmination of years of volunteer effort.
- New ways of conducting AAPG business is another, and there are several projects underway that focus on shared services with other like-minded organizations.
- The B.I.G. Committee has offered its recommendations to the Executive Committee, which will form additional work teams to evolve concept to proposal.
- And the AAPG-F is working on several initiatives, including a capital campaign, to support the advancement and broad dissemination of AAPG science.
These are all important aspects of revitalizing AAPG for its next century. But there is a fundamental question that we must address: How do we provide value to our members and profession in the 21st century?
AAPG’s membership benefits over the past decades have not appreciably changed. Like in times of yore, we offer a journal, a magazine and an annual meeting. Is that really what will attract a new generation of energy geoscientists to AAPG? Is this what they need to succeed?
We need your help to answer these questions. Drop your thoughts into the online comments and help shape a new narrative for AAPG.