Why I Accepted the Invitation to be a Candidate for an AAPG Office
By Dan Schwartz
The AAPG is the premier petroleum geoscience organization in the world. I am truly honored to have been nominated for the position of vice president-Sections.
AAPG Sections are a geographical slice of the U.S. petroleum business and are often the first place that geoscientists connect with AAPG. The Sections help to coordinate multi-society activities, provide educational and financial support, and interface with AAPG headquarters. To ensure success at all levels, the vice president-Sections must actively engage with association leadership, Sections, AAPG leadership and staff to give voice to Sections and association issues, and to communicate Executive Committee recommendations back to the Sections. The vice president-Sections also must ensure AAPG products (e.g. GTW, forums, courses and certifications) are being actively distributed, and are relevant to Section members.
During my 35-plus years at Shell, and recently at Aera, I have had jobs in research, exploration, development, production, finance and new business development. I’ve had the privilege to work with exceptional colleagues in the United States, Brazil, UK, Netherlands, Cameroon, Nigeria, Morocco, Malaysia and India. I quickly realized that my success can be only measured by the success of the people with whom I work. As chief geologist for Shell Oil, it was my responsibility to ensure that staff was fully capable, using the right tools and following the right procedures. A blended portfolio of on-the-job and targeted technical training courses was critical to achieving these goals. I am fortunate to have had leadership positions where I was able to ensure that cross discipline teams were well equipped to deal with global challenges through participation in multi-disciplinary training like that from AAPG.
I was fortunate to have mentors in my career, learning technical and business skills from Rufus LeBlanc and Mike Forrest, and many of my contemporaries. The industry, however, has changed – many corporate training and research centers have closed or down-sized. This is an area of opportunity for AAPG and the Sections to step in, providing training and resources for our developing geoscientists. I’ve helped to address some of these needs in leadership roles for the Pacific Section, where we’ve grown our scholarship, IBA, Student Chapter and YP programs to revitalize interest in the AAPG. We are documenting and sharing best practices across all the Sections to improve local AAPG operations. I’ve also engaged at the domestic and global scale to improve educational programs via the AAPG Education Committee, and built strong industry-academic ties in the UK and in California.
I would continue to expand these efforts as AAPG vice president-Sections. AAPG has the opportunity to be an indispensable resource for petroleum geoscientists, and building strong ties between national, the Sections, and the membership is required to achieve this goal.