What motivates you? How do you
keep going? I have been thinking
about how we have been keeping
motivated over the past year while most
of us have been coping with working from
home, juggling office space and taking
care of children, along with job losses,
health crises, and few (if any) interactions
or in-person networking opportunities.
I know that many of you have been
experiencing all or some of those situations
and, unfortunately, it is not over yet!
Online Offerings
Our members have shown a lot
of resiliency to stay motivated by
attending pivot webinars organized and
championed by Susan Nash, AAPG’s
director of innovation, emerging science
and technology. By focusing on new
technologies and providing information
on transitioning into other industries,
these efforts provide support to members
looking for new career options.
The Energy Minerals Division has
been instrumental in putting on webinars
ranging from “Fundamentals of shale gas/oil reservoirs,” conducted by myself,
and a free workshop on “Freeware
for freelancers,” organized by EMD’s
President-Elect Justin Birdwell and Vice
President Mike Bingle-Davis. The latter
will have a second edition next month
because of great demand. Please also
check out our EMD YouTube channel
where this webinar was posted.
See Each Other at ACE 2021
Resiliency and motivation are needed
to keep engaged in our profession,
and after a year of attending webinars,
virtual volunteering and networking
over Zoom, I think we are all ready for
in-person meetings again! Although
ACE 2021 will not happen in May, it will
be even better when in September we
meet for an in-person/virtual meeting in
conjunction with the Society of Exploration
Geophysicists. The Theme 9 program,
organized by our chair and EMD Secretary
Claudia Hackbarth, will be very exciting
with several EMD sessions and two
special panel sessions: “What’s new in
energy minerals” with our esteemed EMD
commodity committee chairs giving us
an overview of the newest developments
regarding their respective resources;
and a special session on “Questions of
transitions – forum of leading thinkers.”
We hope you are planning to attend in
person this fall!
Member Survey
We asked, you answered, we listened.
Thank you so much for answering our
member survey about how to serve our
membership better. We are happy that
your priorities are lining up with our goals
to serve our membership.
Here are a few highlights:
overwhelmingly you would like us to
communicate new technology and
geoscience concepts through virtual
communication. The most interesting
committees to you were Critical Minerals,
Energy Economics and Technology and
Tight Oil and Gas, followed by Geothermal,
in which we will keep expanding and
conducting workshops and webinars
to disseminate information and new
concepts.
We have also been exploring our
budget shortfalls that we might remedy
with a small fee. It seems most of you
wouldn’t mind contributing less than $30
per year to keep EMD going!
As always, please contact me or any
of the EMD committee chairs at AAPG.org/Divisions/EMD if you’d like to get
involved in this exciting organization. It
has been a pleasure to serve as president
of this interesting and forward-thinking
organization and I am looking forward
to stay involved as past president next
year!