Reflect on the past in developing a plan for a successful future
June has arrived, signaling the last month of my term as President of the Houston Geological Society. I am so honored to have served as President of HGS during this past year. It has been a wonderful experience in so many ways. My term as HGS’s President has been filled with excitement, enthusiasm, unexpected challenges, and amazing outcomes. Through a united team effort, HGS has advanced in many incredible directions over the course of this year.
In this, my last letter as HGS President, I would like to reflect on the past for reference to help develop a plan for a successful future for the Houston Geological Society. In the September 2024 HGS Bulletin, I proposed an overarching goal for HGS for the upcoming year. The goal was to build HGS’s reputation as a premier Houston-area geoscience organization that promotes innovative technologies, research, and education. To accomplish this goal, I identified three objectives to guide HGS activities throughout the year; they were: 1) grow HGS’s membership; 2) build HGS as a geoscience resource and networking organization; and 3) strengthen HGS’s financial sustainability.
Reflecting on HGS’s 2024 – 2025 Goals
HGS membership has experienced an exceptional increase in active, emeritus, and student membership categories during this year. The significant increase in student memberships, in particular, may be precursor of a future sustained growth in HGS membership by actively engaged geoscientists in our community.
HGS has significantly expanded its position as a geoscience resource and networking organization. There have been numerous influential initiatives that have driven HGS to be the Houston-area geoscience resource organization. An initiative largely spearheaded by Catie Donohue, HGS Vice President, was innovative change to our technical meetings resulting in increased attendance and expanded networking opportunities. Catie organized speakers with diverse talks on pioneering technologies and current research in geoscience. Catie also reorganized HGS meeting formats to include panel discussions, and varied the meeting locations to provide a variety of settings for technology exchange. An initiative led by Ted Godo, HGS Editor, focused on strengthening HGS’s technology exchange through innovative and informative articles in HGS’s monthly Bulletin. The technical articles in the HGS Bulletin were well received by our members and initiated numerous stimulating discussions. Initiatives by Angel Callejon and Thom Tucker, Co-Charis of Continuing Education Committee (CEC) improved the diversity and content of HGS’s short courses. This year, seven short courses were organized, providing critical state-of-the-art training opportunities for Houston-area geoscientists. Recruiting initiatives by the Student Expo committee, chaired by Andrew Sterns, brought together over 300 graduate students and 22 companies in a highly successful career networking event for our future geoscientists. HGS has benefited from numerous initiatives by HGS’s committees for our social events, educational outreach programs, and social media programs. All these initiatives have positioned HGS as the go-to geoscience resource and networking organization for our geoscience community.
Strengthening HGS’s financial sustainability as a goal has been a year-long effort taken on by the whole HGS team, which included Board members, committees, volunteers, and staff. In September, the HGS Board approved a budget that had been developed by working together as a team to put in place a financially sound budget of expenses and revenues for the fiscal year. I am thrilled to announce that HGS is, at this time, projected to have a positive cash flow for this 2024 – 2025 fiscal year, which will be the first time in several years! This is a truly inspirational example of HGS’S multi-year dedication to support and overcome financial challenges.
Looking Forward to 2025 - 2026
I am excited to announce that the HGS Board has approved the proposal recommended by the HGS website committee to build a new HGS website! This new website will be greatly improved over our current antiquated system. It will be more interactive, and it should provide much easier navigation to HGS’s various menus, links and sites. The new website is scheduled to be installed in mid-June to early July. So, please be patient during our transition to a new website! It’s going to be great!
On July 1, 2025, the outgoing HGS Board members will hand over the reins to the 2025 - 2026 HGS Board. In discussions with the incoming HGS Board members, they are all excited to roll up their sleeves and move forward. President-Elect Patty Walker has worked alongside the current HGS Board and is already enthusiastically working on initiatives for the coming year.
Thank You to HGS Sponsors!
HGS extends a sincere and heartfelt thank you to all our sponsors that have contributed to our success over this past year! Your generous contributions have enabled HGS to host 24 technical lunch and dinner meetings, 2 conferences with joint geoscience societies, 7 short courses, 3 career networking programs, 4 outreach and STEM programs, and 14 social events. All these events have brought together our geoscience community to exchange innovative technologies and research and provide educational programs for our geoscientists.
In closing, again I would like to say that it has been a great honor to serve as HGS President this past year. I thank each of you for your support and encouragement during the course of my term. It has been an absolutely fantastic experience working with the HGS team, engaging with HGS members at the many venues and working with HGS’s dedicated professional staff. Admittedly, it’s taken a lot of work by a lot of people, but it’s so satisfying to see the results of our hard work contributing to the growth of our understanding of our Earth!
I look forward to seeing you at our meetings this fall!
Penny E. Patterson