DEBORAH KING SACREY needs no introduction among our membership or the geological community at large. She epitomizes the ideals of service and leadership within our profession, and for that the Houston Geological Society is pleased to recognize her with its highest honor, the Gerald A. Cooley Award. Her continued contributions — to the HGS, AAPG, the Oklahoma City Geological Society, the Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies, the Society of Independent Professional Earth Scientists, and her alma mater, the University of Oklahoma — are numerous and noteworthy.
HGS Gerald A. Cooley Award
Deborah’s career began at Gulf Oil after graduation from OU. She continued her oil company staff career at ANR, Old Dominion, Weeks Exploration, and Paramount Energy before founding Auburn Energy, a thriving consultancy with tremendous success generating numerous prospects and discoveries.
Deborah’s contributions to both local and national professional organizations are truly legendary. SIPES, the Society of Independent Professional Earth Scientists, voted Deborah to be their first woman National President in 2001–2002. That honor culminated a long history of service to the Oklahoma and Houston chapters including terms as Vice-President and President of the SIPES Foundation. In service to AAPG, she has represented both the Oklahoma City and Houston societies in the House of Delegates and chaired both the Nominations and Elections and Rules and Procedures Committees.
She has served in several offices in AAPG’s Division of Professional affairs, including Vice President and Secretary. She has also served as past General Vice-Chair and DPA Vice-Chair at AAPG National Conventions. At the University of Oklahoma, she is past-Chair of the Alumni Advisory Council.
Deborah has helped to pioneer many new and successful additions to each organization that she has served. Her insight and creativity helped AAPG realize the concept of AAPEX, the successful Prospect and Property Expo for which she has served on the Steering Committee since its inception. Most recently, Deborah has helped to elevate the HGS Techno-Fest event to new levels, creating the first annual Techno-Conference this year. This event was highly successful, creating a new and very accessible venue for professionals to network outside of a national convention format.
Perhaps most symbolic of Deborah’s contribution to our profession is her record of voluntarily and unselfishly teaching courses and seminars in the use of SMT Kingdom geophysical interpretation software at numerous industry events and conventions. Hundreds of mid-career geoscientists have benefited enormously from this opportunity.
The Houston Geological Society is indebted to Deborah’s dedicated service. She has worked tirelessly in the Society office and in many of the HGS’s regular and special activities and events. She has served as past Treasurer and as Committee Chairperson for the Public Relations, Political Affairs, and Techno-Fest committees. In addition, she played a key role in moving the office twice and in training and supporting HGS’s office staff. She has been honoured with both the Distinguished Service and President’s Awards by the HGS. HGS Honorary Life Membership Award
LINDA STERNBACH is awarded Honorary Life Membership in the Houston Geological Society after 26 years of contributions to the organization. She joined HGS while at ARCO Oil and Gas in 1985 and started serving on committees in 1990. She has served as President, Vice President, Guest Night Chair, HGS Bulletin Editor, on the Directory and Membership Growth committees, and in the International Explorationists Group. Her contributions range from helping others behind the scenes and “bringing the projector” (HGS Rising Star Award in 1995) to more visible roles, especially as Guest Night chair and Vice President, and as a frequent contributor to the HGS Bulletin, writing editorials and articles about Society events. Linda has recruited many new members, students, volunteers, and leaders for HGS. Through it all, her goal has always been to make HGS more rewarding to its members.
HGS is known for creating popular social events. Linda recalls the excitement at a packed HGS dinner meeting during Clint Moore’s term as Vice President in 1993. More than 250 people gathered to see the pay section log of Anadarko’s Mahogany Field sub-salt discovery well before it was released to the public. Clint Moore later asked Linda to serve as HGS Editor. She was happy to accept even though she now admits she did not know what she was getting into. During the two years Linda was Editor-elect and Editor (1996-1998), she and HGS Editor Dave Orchard knew the Bulletin needed to be reformatted. Together they increased photographic, color, and technical content. It was a time when logging onto the Internet was new to HGS members. Linda then joined the HGS International Explorationists’ group under Al Danforth, Scott Thornton, and Martin Cassidy where she served as Treasurer and Technical Program Chair.
When Denise Stone was President, she asked Linda to chair Guest Night at the Houston Museum of Natural Science during the period 2003-2007. Charles Sternbach was able to contact Apollo 17 moonwalker Jack Schmitt to speak at the Guest Night in June 2003. Linda remembers how happy everybody was to meet Dr. Schmitt and see the HMNS. This was followed by a Guest Night speaker from Johnson Space Center in 2004 after the NASA rover Spirit and Opportunity landed on Mars. Other Guest Night events featured paleontologist Dr. Bob Bakker and dinosaurs, and space shuttle astronaut Jim Reilly. All these Guest Night events sold out.
As HGS President (2007-2008), Linda worked hard to overhaul the HGS website and increase membership. A new webpage design went online in 2008 after a lot of creative input from the HGS Board and web manager Bill Osten. Linda also strove to increase HGS membership. The HGS once had 5000 members, but in 2007 the number of members was sliding down to 3000. Meetings with the Membership Committee and email recruiting efforts helped achieve more than 3500 members. Linda visited U. of H. and Rice to encourage younger members to join. The Society went from five student members to 200 due to onsite visits to these local universities.
Recently, Linda was the Technical Chair for the 2011 AAPG Houston convention. Linda feels grateful for the opportunity to serve HGS. She enjoys volunteering because the programs make a lot of people happy and the work is worth it. She thanks HGS for the opportunity to experience numerous geological presentations that helped her pave new paths for her own career: working international, deepwater, learning about new technology, and many other topics. She believes, as many do, that a member gets far more out of HGS networking and social connections than you’ll ever expect.