2004 Election of Officers Candidates

Sandy Lucas
for Assistant Director of Communications

Sandy was born in Toronto and raised in Brampton, Ontario. She has always had a desire to be near the mountains and make a career in sales and marketing for herself. So she finally made the move out to Calgary 11 years ago; knowing the oil and gas industry could provide both challenges and rewards. Sandy started her career with Prime Surveys and found she actually had a passion for seismic data and yearned for a better understanding of the subsurface. She then pursued a career in sales & marketing with Veritas GeoServices. During those years she obtained a Geology and Geophysics certificate from SAIT as well as a Marketing Management Certificate from the University of Calgary to aid her in this competitive market. Sandy now works with Sensor Geophysical as Manager of Sales & Marketing. She is enjoying promoting Sensor’s expertise in geophysical processing and reservoir studies.

Sandy is a member of the SEG, CSEG, CSPG and presently sits on the CSEG 2005 sponsorship committee. She is excited to be nominated for the position of Assistant Director of Communications and will bring commitment and enthusiasm to the position, should she be elected.

Trudy Pelletier
for Assistant Director of Communications

Trudy has been in Calgary since 1985 working in a sales and service environment as an account manager with the last four years in the oil and gas industry. Starting at Excalibur-Gemini in the fall of 2000, and now with Divestco, Trudy represents the geophysical services which includes survey audit, database, technical records management and GIS mapping. Divestco’s clients know Trudy as being responsive, organized, enthusiastic and committed to a personalized service.

Trudy has an extensive background in account management, communication and leadership skills having spent a big part of her career with Dale Carnegie Training. Trudy is passionate about learning and communication and is looking forward to making a contribution as a member of the CSEG executive committee.

Jon Downton
for Assistant Director of Education

Jon Downton obtained his B.Sc. in geophysics from the University of Alberta in 1985. He has worked for numerous processing and software development companies including ITA, Landmark, Integra Geoservices, Scott Pickford/Core Lab, Paradigm and now Veritas DGC. In 2000, he decided to pursue the technical aspect of business by returning to the University of Calgary for Ph.D. studies in AVO inversion. He is defending his thesis in November 2004. His main interest lies in estimating rock and fluid properties from seismic data including AVO, inversion and rock physics. Jon has presented numerous papers at SEG and CSEG conferences, for which, with his co-authors, Jon has received Best Paper, Best Student Paper, and Honorable Mention Awards. Jon also teaches a course on AVO inversion and processing which has been given in Calgary and Houston. Jon is a member of the CSEG, SEG, EAEG and APPEGA. He has served on numerous convention committees, served as Technical Chairman and as a technical reviewer for CSEG and SEG conventions.

Mike Perz
for Assistant Director of Education

Mike received his B.Sc. in Physics from the University of Toronto in 1990 and his M.Sc. in Geophysics from the University of British Columbia in 1993. From 1993-1997 he worked at Pulsonic Geophysical Ltd., where he wrote prestack time migration software. For the past seven years he has been employed at Geo-X Systems Ltd., first as an Applications Programmer, and most recently as Manager of Research and Development. Managerial duties do not preclude him from pursuing processing research interests such as deconvolution, wavelet stability, and first arrival tomography. He has presented numerous CSEG and SEG papers, and has published several articles in both the RECORDER and The Leading Edge. In addition, Mike has sat on numerous technical committees for both the CSEG and SEG conventions, and has served as a reviewer for Geophysics and for other technical journals. He maintains a keen interest in continuing education, owing perhaps to his overly-academically-rooted upbringing (professor Dad and high-school principal Mom), and in this spirit he served on the CSEG Scholarship Committee from 2000-2002.

Abhi Manerikar
for Assistant Director of Finance

I was both astonished and honoured when asked to stand for the position of Assistant Director of Finance. I was astonished for two reasons: first, there are so many talented geophysicists in our community, surely the nominating committee must have been able to find an MBA–toting future titan of industry more worthy of the Finance post ; secondly, after having worked for 20 years with a variety of companies, big and small, in the WCSB, Canadian frontiers, and internationally, I cheerfully confess to having a very large “sphere of ignorance” (i.e. that area of knowledge that you are confident you know little or nothing about) but was surprised to discover that it also included the workings of our society.

I have, however, enjoyed all of the benefits of being a member of the CSEG, including spending a few hours chairing sessions at the Convention, attending technical luncheons and courses, and reading the (excellent) RECORDER diligently; and am pleased to be given the opportunity to contribute in return.

It is, therefore, doubly an honour to be nominated for this position. I hope that by matching the enthusiasm, professionalism and diligence of my predecessors I can help ensure the Society remains financially viable.

Oliver Kuhn
for Vice-President

I graduated from the University of Western Ontario with a B.Sc. in Geophysics in 1984, and was hired by Geo-X Systems Ltd. later that year. I have worked for Geo-X since 1984, except for a two year stint with Geco-Prakla, and am currently the General Manager for Geo-X’s processing division.

It’s an honour for me to be running for V.P., and if elected I look forward to the opportunity of serving the society and its members. I must say that when I was younger, I was probably indifferent towards the CSEG and took it for granted. However, when I worked overseas (Singapore, N.Z., Australia – 1990- 1993), I came to appreciate and miss the tremendous sense of community within the CSEG, and I am now an unabashed booster of the society and try to help out as much as possible. I feel that the CSEG has a very valid and useful mandate – “Organized to promote the science of geophysics and to promote fellowship and cooperation among our members”.

On the science side of things, I have served as a co-chair for several technical convention sessions over the years and was Technical Chairman for the 2002 CSEG convention. I have been able to contribute through my involvement with the RECORDER magazine (although mainly by correcting the grammar of authors whose technical skills and knowledge far exceed my own!) I feel the CSEG is on track with the conventions, RECORDER, luncheons, website, and recently, the Doodletrain and Outreach programs. I have done my best to support these efforts in the past, and would continue to do so as V.P.

I have also been active on the fellowship side of the CSEG’s efforts. I have served on the Ski Spree committee for several years, including a stint as Chairman in 2002. After a few years on the Doodlebug committee, I had the honour of being Chairman for the 2004 tournament. While I strongly believe the primary role of the CSEG is a technical one, I also think the social events are extremely valuable, as they nurture the social fabric that holds our society together, and they foster communication at all levels.

I don’t see the CSEG as an organization in need of any major changes, so I would see my role as Vice President as working with, and learning from, an already smoothly operating executive, and contributing to their efforts to the best of my abilities. Looking to the future, I envision the CSEG adding increasing value in three main areas, and I would like to ensure that the society continues to move forward in these directions. They are (i) helping attract bright young people into our field of study, and assisting to integrate them into our profession; (ii) providing an active technical community with good continuing education services to keep our members technically competitive; and (iii) acting as a valuable networking resource and technical flagship to assist Canadian geophysicists and geophysical companies in their increasingly important international activities. Finally, I’d like to see our excellent social efforts such as the Doodlespiel, Ski Spree, Doodlebug, Convention Icebreaker, plus any new initiatives, continue to be a big part of the CSEG’s activities, because nobody said we can’t have fun while doing good geophysics!

Last year I was presented with the CSEG’s Meritorious Service award. This was a tremendous honour for me, but I felt a bit awkward receiving it, as I always associate awards with something coming to an end. I intend to stay very active within the CSEG – it’s such a vibrant and valuable society – and running for V.P. is one way I can achieve that.

Don Lawton
for Vice-President

Don is a Professor of Geophysics at the University of Calgary and currently holds the appointment of Chair in Exploration Geophysics. He is a New Zealander by birth and grew up on a sheep and cattle farm (hence all those sheep jokes!). He received a B.Sc.(Hons) degree in Geology from the University of Auckland in 1974, followed by a Ph.D. in geophysics in 1979. In the mid-1970’s he worked in New Zealand for the minerals division of Amoco, and emigrated to Canada in 1979 to take up an appointment in geophysics at the University of Calgary. He has now been at the UofC for over 25 years and over this time period has instructed over 2000 undergraduate students in various geophysics courses and in field schools and has supervised 35 graduate students.

Don served as Head of the Department of Geology and Geophysics from 1997 to 2002, is a Director of FRP and an Associate Director of CREWES. He and his graduate students have received several Best Paper awards from the CSEG and SEG. He is a past editor of the Canadian Journal of Exploration Geophysics, was Second Vice-President of the CSEG in 1994, received a CSEG Meritorious Service Award in 1995, and was awarded the CSEG Medal in 2000. He is a member of CSEG, SEG, EAGE, AAPG, ASEG, CGU and APEGGA.

He is honoured to have been asked to stand for the position of Vice-President of the CSEG. It is a close-knit Society with a long history of excellent technological and educational achievements as well as in fostering a strong sense of fellowship amongst its members. Should he be elected to the position of Vice-President, he would maintain the commitment of the Society to continuing education opportunities for its members, building on the established strength of the highly successful DoodleTrain program. He would also work to serve the Society and its members in meeting new challenges such as the important role that geophysics can play in the development of unconventional gas and heavy oil resources in the Western Canadian sedimentary basin. Development of integrated training programs for geophysicists, geologists and petroleum engineers is another important endeavour that he would undertake. At the national level, there is an urgent need for the geosciences to have a stronger voice and he would work towards this goal on behalf of the CSEG and its members.