Contributors Top $1.6 Million in Gifts

Individual contributions to the AAPG Foundation topped $1,622,470 in 2007.

Foundation officials, in expressing thanks to the thousands of AAPG members who donated money over the past year, noted much gratitude especially for members of the AAPG Foundation Trustee Associates, which accounted for 79 percent of the year's donations.

The Trustee Associates was formed in 1967 with the mission to provide a source of funding to support educational, charitable and scientific objectives that directly and indirectly benefit the geologic profession and general public.

Foundation Trustee Chairman Bill Fisher recently announced that funding totaling $196,000 was approved at the Board ’s recent meeting in Tulsa. Included in that total:

• A grant to AAPG DataPages totaling $146,100 will be used to fast-track additional geological collections and GIS projects.
• The American Geological Institute (AGI) will receive $25,000 in additional funding for its Earth Science Week Program.
• The University of Colorado’s Interactive Geology Project will receive a $25,000 grant.  

Contributions toward the creation of two new grants-in-aid funds have been received recently by the Foundation.

•  Foundation and AAPG Executive Director Rick Fritz has provided funding to establish a memorial grant-in-aid to honor his parents, Charles B. and Marilyn C. Fritz, to be used by an Oklahoma State University student.
•  Trustee Associate Allan Martini and his wife, Eleanor, have provided funding for the new Allan and Eleanor Martini Named Grant-in-Aid, which will provide an annual $1,000 grant to a geoscience graduate student whose thesis research has application to the search for and development of petroleum and energy-mineral resources.

By defraying the increasingly high costs of fieldwork and lab analysis, the Grants-in-Aid Program provides support to deserving students to further their research.