Letter from AAPG President
The AAPG Executive Committee has been working on a number of issues this year. We’ve been hampered by having started the year with a budget that is over a million dollars in the red, due in part to changes in the headquarters staff pension plan and in part to sh
rinkage in the AAPG investment portfolio. Thus, in the name of fiscal responsibility, several worthy programs unfortunately did not receive funding. However, we are optimistic that the financial picture will improve with upswings in the global economy.
One of the programs that has received funding from the AAPG Foundation and from generous corporate donations is the Imperial Barrel Award competition. This is a Cadillac program for AAPG, engaging both students and their professors in solving real petroleum-geology problems, and exposing them to teamwork, to the industry, and to the networking potential of AAPG. Although it has been funded, it has been expanding rapidly and will need more dollars in the coming year.
AAPG did receive a significant influx of money from the US Department of Energy to continue to administer the Petroleum Technology Transfer Council. This program brings petroleum geology training and technology to local meetings.
One of the issues the Executive Committee is working on is the proposal for a significant expansion of the Energy Minerals Division. We need to maintain the EMD enthusiasm and energy without duplicating existing AAPG efforts, and the other AAPG divisions have been watching this debate unfold with considerable interest.
We have also been assessing the mission and functions of the Global Climate Change Committee. This group of passionate scientists has been deeply involved in an effort to bring both sides of the Anthropogenic Global Warming debate to the AAPG membership, but it’s not obvious that this is central to the needs of that membership or the mission of AAPG
Kay Pitts, AAPG Treasurer and member of the Executive Committee, has been working with the International Regions Committee to put together a Memorandum of Understanding that lays out the interaction mechanisms and protocols between the AAPG International Regions and AAPG Headquarters. Once finalized, this memo will help to define the roles, duties, and expectations of the different entities, expediting administration.
The Executive Committee has been represented at each of the Section meetings to date, and we held one of our six meetings this year at the Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies last September. We are trying to re-establish the strong relationship between the local affiliated societies and Headquarters. We also met at the International Convention and Exhibition in Rio de Janeiro in November and will meet at the AAPG Annual Meeting in New Orleans, LA to be held April 11-14, 2010.