On 3 September 2015, I departed from the Piarco International Airport in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago to represent the University of the West Indies –St. Augustine (UWI STA) AAPG Student Chapter at the AAPG Latin America & Caribbean Region Student Chapter Leadership Summit (SCLS).   I arrived safely in Bucaramanga after approximately six hours of travelling, which included connecting flights at Avenida Domingo Diaz, Panama and Bogota, Colombia. The highly anticipated leadership summit was now upon me and a brand new experience was about to begin. The leadership summit, which ran from 4-6 September, promised many great learning experiences as well as the formation of new bonds amongst my fellow Latin America Chapter leader counterparts. My major learning outcomes via technical lectures as well as development and professional sessions were:

• Benefits of being an AAPG member
• Ways to improve the Student Chapter
• Transitioning from Student Chapter to Young Professionals
• What makes a good leader
• Professionalism, Ethical behavior & Career Development
• How to handle the low oil prices

Perhaps the best way to begin examining my learning outcomes would be to highlight the benefits of being an AAPG member. Student members have the opportunity to attend international and local conferences free of charge, provided that they volunteer at the AAPG stands/booths. They also can work in the AAPG Store, which can help bring money to their chapters. Some students are also applicable to receive grants based on research being done. Another huge benefit to all student members would be access to world class publications via the AAPG Bulletin, Search & Discovery and Datapages. This has already been very helpful to me in my research for my undergraduate studies. Benefits regarding the chapter as a whole include the receiving of grants based on proper proposals, lecturer programs whereby AAPG Distinguished Lecturers can give talks at your university, receiving of books via donations or book gift programs and monetary prizes by winning AAPG competitions such as the YouTube video contest, Wiki Write Off and Imperial Barrel Award (IBA).

The IBA in particular opens doors which few accomplishments can, for the individuals who can call themselves IBA winners. It’s a beneficial competition which requires great teamwork skills in order to propose a well, based on an integrated approach on the dataset given. The final major benefit would be for those who have just graduated and are seeking a job. The AAPG Career Center provides an avenue for the individual to upload their resume and seek job opportunities while student expos and networking opportunities provide these individuals with the chance to meet and interact with persons in the industry. 

One of the biggest parts of the packed schedule was the presentations of Student Chapter activities by each Chapter representative present at the summit. This was done over the two days of the summit as a total of 19 presentations, each ranging from 10-15 minutes, were conducted. It was huge learning experience for me to see how the UWI STA Chapter can improve as I watched the other 18 presentations. My first major observation was the passion these students had for geology and it definitely transcended into their chapter’s annual activities. Well thought out competitions sparked ideas in my mind as I saw a geological photograph competition done by one chapter whereby students of the chapter try to take their best photos of the country’s geology. Field trips and technical talks were abundant and almost the norm activities to be performed. Many of the chapters were also heavily involved in AAPG sanctioned competitions which include a YouTube video contest as well as a Wiki Write Off, both of which I was unaware of before attending this event. Thus it is definitely something the current and future SC Executives can initiate in our chapter. Another impressive feature seen was the proper establishment of a student chapter website which provides an alternative and more widespread avenue to promote the activities as compared to a Facebook page or group. Finally, the networking of some chapter leaders was quite impressive. These individuals carried and distributed call cards which contained all the necessary chapter information such as Faculty Advisor, phone contacts, SC email-address and SC website. This is definitely an excellent tool to be adopted by our chapter in order to network the group at the numerous geological sessions and events our students are exposed to.

Lizbeth Calizaya, the AAPG Latin America & Caribbean Region Student Chapter Liaison, presented an excellent talk on how to transition from the Student Chapter to the Young Professionals Chapter. She made note of the individual membership now being self-funded, but indicated that companies do provide sponsorship for these memberships. As a graduate, it can be easy to fall into that unsure state due to the job availabilities, but being a YP keeps the individual involved with the AAPG and continued networking and friendships will be constructed. I see this very important to Trinidad & Tobago. As now a former President of the SC, I will gladly take the responsibility to help transition all current final year undergraduate students into becoming YPs within the upcoming year. After a year of working experience, some of us can then even find ourselves in the YP Executive, which will be crucial for the continued development of the YP Chapter in our country. This is so because it can provide the best connection with the SC as we will be familiar with those in charge of the SC, which creates a constant transitioning of students to YPs over time.

My major learning outcomes thus far have been how the AAPG directly benefits and influences the students of our Chapter. In addition to this, I was also fortunate to take away great personal development skills. Tips on what makes a good leader were provided from personal experiences of Flover Rodriguez, AAPG International Vice-Chair. He first outlined what leadership is not about and listed the following:

• Leadership does not include anything with seniority or position in a company.
• Leadership has nothing to do with titles.
• Leadership has nothing to do with personal attributes.
• Leadership isn’t management.

Flover stated a combination of access to funds, relationships with people and an understanding of market conditions all packaged by a drive, purpose or belief leads to being a successful leader. When you have this passion in fulfilling some dream, others who believe what you believe will work with blood, sweat and tears for you. Leadership was then defined as the process of social influence which maximizes the efforts of others toward the achievement of a greater good. Leadership is a not something that is given to you but it is earned and claimed for oneself.

"If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader” – John Quincy Adams

The President of the AAPG, John Hogg, provided a relevant talk for how important professionalism and ethical behavior is to us future geoscientists. He outlined the key components that lead to professionalism. They are:

• Integrity- a firm adherence to a code of values
• Competence – product of education, training and experience
• Honesty – fairness and straightforwardness of conduct, a refusal to lie or steal
• Ethics – discipline of right and wrong
• Attitude – commitment to hard work, to achieve and maintain confidence
• Trustworthy – worthy of confidence, dependable, avoid conflicts of interest
• Responsible – answer for your own actions
• Loyalty – faithful to a course, who and what you have allegiance to
• Initiative – take charge, show energy to perform an action
• Candor – freedom from prejudice
• Confidence – believe in yourself
• Constant growth – keep learning and improving of skills
• Diligence – commitment to hard work
• Respect – being polite, kind and considerate
• Enthusiasm – strong feeling of excitement

Ethical behavior was also mentioned. It can be defined as doing the right thing when no one is looking even though the wrong thing is legal. All this leads to you as a professional to be able to conduct yourself in your company in such a manner whereby you won’t be involved in any negative or embarrassing situation as this can blacklist your name in the entire industry. Mr. Hogg concluded by giving career development tips. Basically, you must be passionate about your career, be ready to keep learning throughout your life from good and bad experiences, know where you want to take to your career as it is unlikely you will have the same role throughout your life and finally, take every chance to improve weaknesses and even get outside your comfort zone.

This personally was my favorite presentation at the summit. Richard Ball, geologist at Chevron, presented leadership tips as well as ways to improve yourself in order to stand out to companies. Although he delivered his talk via an online call, his enthusiasm and passion was well translated to everyone in the room. His leadership lessons were to always keep your vision in mind despite things never going to plan at times and to just keep things simple. Standing out generally involves the individual to keep in mind that only you can change and control what you are involved in. The last major point of note was never to think that you are entitled to anything but you must always work for what you want.

The final and perhaps biggest learning outcome from this talk was how should we students deal with these low oil prices. This was interlinked that there will be a steady demand for geoscientists over the next 30 years as 130,000 professionals are set to retire by 2021. The presenter, Mr. Victor Ramirez, made reference to the cyclic nature of oil and how each has lasted about 7-10 years on average. Thus, during this most recent low, he encouraged students and even young professionals to:

• Stay involved in societies,
• Volunteer for committees,
• Enroll in postgraduate studies,
• Stay connected with  AAPG,
• Participate in IBA,
• Build a strong network and stay connected,
• Remain competitive by gaining new skills,
• Be technically strong and grow scientifically
• Find and follow your passion

In summary, despite the challenges of the language barrier, I made the most of this  opportunity to travel to Colombia and be part of a fun, learning and interactive leadership summit, that has truly improved me as an individual and helped me see ways in which our growing AAPG SC can become more even established. The friendships I made will go a long way in my personal development as well as the improvement of our Student Chapter. 

I would like to take this opportunity to thank firstly the Geological Society of Trinidad & Tobago for sponsoring my airfare to and from Colombia. Secondly, I also thank the AAPG LACR Leadership Team for providing me with this amazing opportunity to attend and represent my country, Trinidad & Tobago, and by extension the Caribbean Region at this Leadership Summit. Huge credit must also be given to the AAPG LACR Organizing Committee as they successfully pulled off a greatly beneficial event. 

I have returned from this summit an improved individual and leader, as well as having an increased desire and passion to stay involved with the AAPG, by lending assistance and advice to the new executive of the SC in addition to becoming involved in the growing YP Chapter. I have renewed hope of how to adapt myself to these low oil prices and I feel more confident and excited for the future. May I have a larger role within the AAPG at some point? It’s a dream that I would love to work towards, as a form of giving back to an organization which has provided me with so much in such a short space of time.