At the opening plenary session of the 2025 Unconventional Resources Technology Conference , Leen Weijers of Liberty Energy posted a wonderful quote he attributed to the baseball legend Yogi Berra. The quote read, “There is a fine line between the numerator and the denominator.” Weijers leveraged this sentiment to examine how well the industry has performed at reducing the cost to produce a barrel of oil equivalent over the past decade in unconventional resource plays. The results were truly impressive and Weijers attributed this in large part to the collaboration of different functional disciplines (engineering, geophysics, geology, supply chain) and the service sector. In essence, he restated the mission of URTeC: to promote cross-discipline learning and communication. Which is why the AAPG, Society of Petroleum Engineers and Society of Exploration Geophysicists jointly sponsor the event.
Budget Time
With further research, I learned the attributed Berra quote has a follow-on sentence which reads, “Only a fraction of people will find this funny.” Whether Yogi said these words or not, the quote did strike me as insightful and was particularly timely as the AAPG is currently planning the 2026 budget. Our fiscal year runs from July 1 through June 30, and the goal of our nonprofit budget is to maximize membership benefit without exceeding our available revenues. The balance of expenses associated with membership benefits and revenues is truly a fine line. Ideally, we want the AAPG’s numerator and denominator to be equal unless there are strategic reasons to deviate from this ratio.
State of Affairs
Over the past few years, there has been discord among the members as to how we manage the AAPG’s revenues and expenses. Some have advocated passionately for cuts to bring our financials back in line and others ardently believe we should reorganize to improve member representation while leveraging more volunteers to deliver member benefits. Both are viable options and have the best interests of the AAPG at heart, but, “You cannot save your way to health,” according to Michael Kaiser, who authored the nonprofit management book, “The Art of the Turnaround: Creating and Maintaining a Healthy Arts Organization.”
Possible Approaches
Kaiser’s research shows that “the first inclination of most boards and staff is to save their organization by saving money.” He argues this is short-sighted and does not position an organization for future success. His comments are supported by a study published in the Harvard Business Review, “Roaring Out of Recession,” by authors Ranjay Gulati, Nitin Nohria and Franz Wholgezogen. The study analyzed 4,700 public companies and how they reacted to three different global recessions. The least successful strategy when facing tough conditions was the “cut only” or “prevention-focused” approach. In these organizations, “pessimism permeated the organization.” The second worst strategy was the “ignore the bad news and keep investing” or “promotion-focused” strategy. With this strategy, realities were overlooked, and the organizations compounded poor performance.
The best strategy blended cuts and investments and was labeled the “less is more” or “progressive” (meaning innovator or reformer) strategy. This balanced approach saw companies trying to do things differently. Either the organizations added resources to address shortcomings, or they sought to use their resources differently. Most made prioritized strategic cuts to create room for these needed resource changes and guided all their efforts by focusing on their customers’ needs.
Opportunities
The AAPG is blessed to have some amazing assets. Our publications are highly sought to support research and learning, but they also can provide an amazing peer reviewed dataset for machine or AI learning. We have an opportunity to develop subscription solutions to support this type of scientific advancement while protecting our copyrights.
We are also fortunate to have a Foundation with financial resources available for powering geoscience learning. How do we collaborate with the Foundation within the constraints of their nonprofit structure and required educational remit, to help the Foundation broaden its reach for public learning? The Foundation has been successful sponsoring geoscience students to attend summer field camps. We must build upon this success to encourage geoscience students to pursue careers in subsurface energy professions and become AAPG members.
Our partnerships with industry and academic institutions also requires a refresh and could provide us with new avenues to create solutions that will benefit not only our partners but also our members. Ideally, we want these new solutions to provide material benefits to the market and generate annual recurring revenues that can be reliably predicted.
Additionally, we must make improvements to how we communicate with our members and market ourselves to the scientific community. We need to create deeper membership connections and help new members onboard to the AAPG. Members also could use assistance in finding and engaging with the benefits they are seeking through membership. Lastly, our website requires an update, and our publications need to attract more advertisers to offset our publishing costs.
Balance
These growth investments will require additional resources, but the budgetary fine line described above will require us in the near term to make reductions in the expense denominator. One of the reasons I was brought on as executive director was to help balance the budget and to assist the Executive Committee in making member value proposition decisions. Knowing what you value as a member will be a critical factor in our calculus.
It is apparent that not all members value the same member benefits. Some value learning workshops and regional events over publications. Others value publications over events, while some prioritize networking or volunteer opportunities. Each of these benefits come with costs and staff support. As the executive director, I have an obligation to our members to ensure we perform efficiently, cost-effectively, and prioritize the use of our finite resources for the members’ benefit. This stewardship is not simple when our publication costs alone exceed the revenues generated by membership dues by more than $1 million, or 47 percent.
Conclusion
AAPG cannot continue to operate at a deficit, but we also cannot solely save or cut our way to prosperity. The dilemma is how do we create more value? Is it either by growing the revenue or reducing expense, or both. Creating and delivering a strong value proposition will deliver more revenue. There is a fine line between the AAPG’s sources of revenue and expenses and member benefits hang in the balance. Tough decisions or trade-offs will be required to solve this equation. The positive news is that we have options to make good things happen for the AAPG and enhance the value for existing and future members. The decisions before us will be made thoughtfully, guided by data, and with the best interest of our members, industry & academic partners, and employees in mind.