Regions
European Region
You will probably read this note in October when the days are shorter and it is foggy here in Europe, but if we are lucky we can still enjoy some sunny and warm days as we did during the summer and in early September when I was writing this contribution.
Those hot days in mid-August are still on my mind. Many of us met in Boulder, Colorado, for Leadership Days at the home university of our AAPG President, surrounded by the gorgeous Rockies and magnificent geology. What fun to be a geoscientist and have such opportunity to visit and explore all of those spectacular places around the world. And even more, what fun to meet all of those nice people that have become my friends over the years when I started to really be active within AAPG. There is an obvious question to start with:
What does AAPG mean to me?
I joined AAPG in 1996 and during the past several years I took many positions, mostly organizing conferences and now serving for my third term as a member of House of Delegates representing Europe. Positions in which I have served AAPG include the General Vice Chair to the AAPG European Region (ER) Conference held in Prague in October 2004, the organizer for the Czech part of Peter Rose’s Presidential tour of Europe in 2005, a member of the Organizing Committee of the AAPG/AAPG ER Energy Conference & Exhibition in Athens 2007, and the Technical Program Chair and Short Course Chair for the same conference. Most recently I was appointed as ICE Technical Program Theme VI Leader and Sponsorship Committee Co-Chair for Milan. It has also been a privilege during the past six years serving as Secretary/Treasurer to the European Region of AAPG.
I always found AAPG an amazing organization with truly enthusiastic people who are fun to work with. But even more, throughout my career as a geophysicist I have found AAPG invaluable as it provides access to high quality professional technical publications and conferences with relevant programs as well as a huge global network for all of us geoscientists. AAPG provides an opportunity to meet our professional needs and expectations as we share our experiences with our colleagues around the world.
As President of the European Region, I wish for this same view to be shared by our young generation, young professionals and student members of AAPG. I hope we can somehow meet their professional needs and expectations when most of the networking and data gathering is now done through new technologies and media, while face-to-face networking plays a less important role. This is an important role for AAPG, to serve as a provider of technical discussions, webinars, online teaching, Search and Discovery programs and so on.
We recently passed July 1: The ritual changing of the guard of AAPG leadership. This is an appropriate time to thank the European Council members, Subcommittees and our London office staff for their voluntary and, at times, very hard work. They have accomplished all of our goals and tasks which you may only see when attending conferences, workshops, student meetings that you hear about when meeting colleagues involved in AAPG activities.
Our new fiscal year started with the a new President-Elect, Treasurer and Secretary as well as four new ER Delegates to the HoD. We are all looking forward to working with our newly elected officers and delegates.
AAPG President Paul Weimer will tour Europe during the coming months. He will visit Central and Eastern Europe after the ICE in Milan and then will head to Western and Northern Europe after the APPEX meeting in March 2012. In many respects, his tour will be different from those we remember or have experienced with previous presidents of AAPG. Perhaps his position as the fellow at the University led him to invest his time to present a half-day short course, free-of-charge, for students and the professionals around the world under the title: The Petroleum Industry in the Next Decade: An Overview to the Science, Technology and AAPG.
The purpose of this short course is to give students and professionals a strong sense of the spectacular technology with which we work, how much E&P concepts have changed during the past three to four years with the rapid evolution in developing unconventional resources, the future of their profession and what they can expect in their career. We will assist Paul Weimer and advise him during his tour around the Europe.
This year’s International Conference & Exhibition will take place in Europe on October 23-26 at Fiera Milano. After Calgary last year and before Singapore next year this is a great chance for us - Europeans - to show the rest of the word this beautiful and historic Italian city and also demonstrate the hard work of many AAPG European members involved in conference preparation and organization. The Technical Program Committee has assembled an exceptional program under the theme: Following Da Vinci’s Footsteps to Future Energy Resources Innovations from Outcrops to Assets.
Leonardo Da Vinci worked in Milan for many years. His footprints are all around Milan and also will be present at the exhibition hall, where a stunning hands-on exhibition of Da Vinci’s splendid machines will be presented along with a myriad of new E&P technologies, products and services from all around the word. You just have to come and enjoy ICE in Milan.
And so like our Italian colleagues will say: Vi aspettiamo a Milano! We look forward to seeing you in Milan!