Countdown to the 21st Century The 1998 HGS Technical Symposium

The HGS held a Technical Symposium as a 75th anniversary event on March 31, 1998 at the Marriott Galleria Hotel and Exhibition Center. Over 400 attendees heard 30 speakers during four half-day sessions discuss the geology and business of petroleum exploration and development.
The idea for a symposium was conceived last year by then HGS president Jim Ragsdale and his board members as a means to help celebrate the society's diamond anniversary. Although commemorating the last 75 years, we decided that the symposium should focus on the future rather than dwell on the past. That led us to our symposium theme, "Countdown to the 21st Century."
The symposium included three forward-looking technical meeting topics: Macroeconomics of Oil and Gas, Emerging Technology, and Deepwater Exploration.
Macroecononiics of Oil and Gas was held in a morning session. Presentations attempted to predict the supply and demand of hydrocarbon products into the 21 st century and the resulting forecasts for the future of the petroleum industry. A strong list of speakers from exploration companies, academia, and industry analysts representing financial firms gathered for this session.
Emerging Technology was held in an afternoon session. A variety of interesting papers from several different fields including engineering, geophysics, and geochemistry were presented in this session.
Deepwater Exploration included both morning and afternoon presentations. Speakers represented major and independent oil companies, academia, and service conipanies. Topics included both domestic and international examples, and ranged from detailed field studies to basinwide 'de geological analysis. All of the papers shared a common geological analysis. All of the papers shared a commmon thread in that they reported on bathymetric deepwater areas and/or the exploration potential of those areas.
I believe that all of the sessions and the papers support- ed the symposium theme, "Countdown to the 21st Century." We had judges in each session grade the presenta- tions using standard AAPG style judging forms. The paper judged to be best was by John M. Armentrout of Mobil Technology Company titled "Depositional Setting of Turbidite System Fields (Mio-Plio-Pleistocene), Gulf of Mexico."
The luncheon keynote speaker, NASA astronaut James F. Reilly, made a fantastic presentation about his recent space shuttle mission (January 1998) and had the audience in stitches with his anecdotes. Many attendees commented to me after the symposium that they particularly enjoyed his presentation.
The Technical Symposium turned out to be a successful event for the society. A large amount of the credit goes to the people that served on my committee and handled a lot of the "details." These individuals include William K "Bill" Peebles (publication), Eric Carlton (registration and student volunteers), Doug Selvius (arrangements), and Dean Grafton (Awards). Joan Henshaw was also extremely helpful with the mail-out and numerous other tasks.