Conversations: Achieving Immortality

Abstract

President's column I am writing this column on the other side of the globe from my home in California, after flying for almost 20 hours to get here. The details of my trip, as in the case of many others, were arranged by SPE staff in Dallas working in concert with the SPE staff in our six other offices around the world. This first tour of 2010, 2½ weeks long, started in Jackson, Mississippi, where I spoke at a gathering of SPE members; on to Dallas for the SPE Board of Directors meeting; to Houston, where I spoke at an annual industry executives breakfast; on to Mumbai, India, to speak at the SPE Oil and Gas India Conference, and a 6-hour drive to visit a student chapter in Pune, India; and finally to Manama, Bahrain, to speak at the SPE Deep Gas Conference and Exhibition, before I go back home for a week to prepare for the next trip. This is a typical travel schedule for the SPE president nowadays. Traveling to some 30 countries, roughly 60 locations, traversing the globe for approximately 300,000 km, and for as many as 75 weeks on the road is not unusual for a president’s 3-year term as president-elect, president, and past president. Our professional society is truly an international organization. Presiding over a complex and international operation requires reaching out to all of our members wherever they may reside. Today, we have more than 92,000 members scattered in 117 countries, with 173 sections and 207 student chapters. More than 55% of SPE’s total members, including more than 80% of student members, reside outside the U.S. (Figs. 1 and 2). But although this is a dramatic demographic shift since its beginnings, SPE’s globalization is not merely measured by the shift in its membership statistics. SPE’s journey toward globalization started more than 50 years ago, with the establishment of the Venezuela Section in 1956. Almost 40 years ago, the first Offshore Europe conference was held in Great Yarmouth, Scotland, under the name Oiltech. In 1979, SPE held the first Middle East Oil and Gas Show and Conference. Although during the 1980s the industry suffered a downturn and roughly half of all jobs were lost, SPE membership experienced a growth throughout the decade. And it was in 1989 when the first Asia Pacific Oil and Gas Conference and Exhibition was held.