Foundation Leadership Looks Forward to Year Ahead

The leadership team for the AAPG Foundation is set for the coming year, and these folks are eager and dedicated to making a significant impact this year in the world of geosciences.

“We’re excited about the coming year, and we’re all inspired by an overwhelming desire to make a difference in the lives of geoscience students, professionals and the public,” said Foundation Chair Jim McGhay, “both today and tomorrow.”

The Foundation leadership team includes three groups: the six-member Board of Trustees, the Members of the Corporation and the Trustee Associates. The programs that are funded by the Foundation are managed by the Programs Team at AAPG, spearheaded by Susie Nolen (team lead), Heather Hodges and Adriane Hausher.

A lot of work, ideas and activity are generated and accomplished by that group of people, but McGhay also stated the obvious: The Foundation’s ability to impact geosciences around the world is possible only because of those who generously give to the Foundation.

“There are a lot of things we want to do in 2025,” McGhay said, “and the gifts and support that we receive make it possible for us to do those things, which are felt by people around the world.”

Foundation-supported activities over the past year included AAPG’s Distinguished Lecture program, the Imperial Barrel Award, the Sustainable Development in Energy Competition, Grants-in-Aid, the new Field Camp Scholarship program (replacing the long-time L. Austin Weeks Undergraduate Grant program), the Deanna and Paul Strunk Military Veterans Scholarship Program, geoscience teaching awards, and various K-12 and public outreach-education initiatives.

Additionally, the Foundation uses donors’ gifts to fund specific geoscience projects around the world. These opportunities come to the Foundation as proposals, and those recently approved by the Trustees include:

• Continued support for the Geoscientists Without Borders program, which offers geoscience expertise and leadership to help in cultural and humane efforts around the world
• Improvements and digital updates at the Dinosaur Ridge Paleontology Data Preservation Project near Denver
• The GEO-Rex project, which exposes K-12 students to a geoscience summer camp (field trips, lab work, etc.) at the Boone Pickens School of Geology at Oklahoma State University
• K-12 teachers to participate in a Buffalo Bayou Field Trip in the Houston area, suggested by the DEG-Education Committee
• Development of the West Texas Geological Society’s 100-Year Anniversary Core Workshop, including the potential for a Permian Basin core epository
• The fourth year of the Sustainable Development in Energy Competition, managed by the AAPG Sustainable Development Committee, an event that has grown in international participation and significance

“The Foundation is having an impact on people’s lives,” McGhay said, “but even as we expand our reach, we know there is much more that we could do – just imagine the breadth of the geosciences in the fields of energy and the environment today.

“Again, I ask for all of our donor and supporter base to not only continue your generous support – none of this is possible without you – but also bring us your ideas on other ways we can help.”

Supporting the Foundation – and offering proposals for new geoscience projects – is as easy as visiting the website (foundation.aapg.org), or by contacting Heather Hodges ([email protected] or [email protected]; 918-560-2621); or contacting any of the Foundation Trustees (see accompanying Trustees box).