Refreshing the Profession
This afternoon I meet an early-career geologist, fairly new to Houston. I naturally sent her information for joining at the Society. And this week I learned of another early-career geologist that is being surplussed due to a merger. So, there is still employment churn in our profession, and the Society is here to help where we can. We are participating in the semiannual Members in Transition hiring event started by the local SPE section and has about thirty professional association participating. Information on participating and volunteering for this event may be found elsewhere in this Bulletin.
On the evening of 8 February we will have our annual Scholarship Night, where we can virtually meet this year’s recipients of our undergraduate HGS Foundation and graduate Calvert Foundation scholarships. This is always a fun evening, and we will see how it is different in this virtual world. The virtual meeting eliminates some of the recipients’ travel challenges of the past. And we will also announce the proposed candidate slate of Members standing for election to the 2021-2022 HGS Board.
Earlier today I watched a HGS lunchtime presentation on very fine grained rocks in the Appalachians, and earlier a panel on financing by the HGS North American group. Last week we had a very well-received HGS short course on aspects of petroleum engineering for geoscientists. So, we are trying to help Members and colleagues maintain their skills at affordable costs.
Please check the HGS website for the description of awards to recognize HGS volunteers (https://www.hgs.org/houston-geological-society-awards-criteria) and the listing of past awardees (https://www.hgs.org/awards-list). If you know a volunteer who should be recognized with an award, please send their name to the HGS office, and they will be reviewed by the Board as we prepare the list of Awardees for this year. We are all volunteers, and the HGS Members are involved in so many professional and educational activities that the Board needs your help to recognize worthy volunteers.
I have always enjoyed charts showing the changes over time for a value or values, particularly for resources. I recently found out that they are called Sankey diagrams. Below is one for energy use I found, and the animation it relates to is at: https://us-sankey.rcc.uchicago.edu/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=ema... .It is interesting to see the delays in “discovery” to effective use.
We have several openings for volunteers in committees. Look at the inside front cover of this Bulletin for the committee list, and see what interests you, and give it a try.
Be safe and volunteer for something.
Jim Tucker
