Executive Message

In order to keep the society strong and growing, efforts are being made to provide more services to the members. The emphasis is on continuing education and more social events. The CSEG is having to operate more like a business and we need to ensure our operation is cost-efficient. At the beginning of the fiscal year, all the subcommittees submit their budgets so the executive may plan the coming year. Like other businesses, we need to maintain a suitable reserve fund and ensure we are planning for a future that meets the needs of the changing society. The Treasurer is now the Director of Finance. This reflects a shift in focus where the role now includes that of a financial planner. Through the subcommittees, the executive are able to branch out for ideas and receive feedback as to what services are needed. A finance subcommittee was created to address fiscal planning issues and provide their expertise to the decision-making process. A 1997 survey of the membership revealed that the events of utmost importance were the annual conventions, the luncheons, and the Recorder. These remain the key focal point of our business.

About Fayda Khalek

Fayda was born in Lebanon in September 1971. She moved to Calgary in July of 1974 and became a Canadian citizen 3 years later. She still remembers the day her mom dressed her and her brother and sister up in their finest clothes and took them down town to the citizenship office. She was completely enthralled walking past all those big buildings and never thought she'd grow up to work in one of them She had no recollection of her previous life in Lebanon, so she didn't completely understand just how lucky she was to be living in such a magnificent country. Her father had already moved to Canada on a work visa and was working in Ottawa when she was born. It was the Lebanese civil war that forced her family to move here.

In the fall of 1973, the town she was from experienced an air bomb attack. The attack was because of the actions of one man in the town who put his fellow villagers at risk. She was sitting on her aunt's lap when the raid occurred. Fayda's aunt put her down and told her not to move while her mother and aunt ran off to gather their children. They were all huddled inside when they took a head count and realized that Fayda was still standing outside. Her aunt ran out in horror and grabbed Fayda who was still standing in the same spot. Her mother with her excellent sense of humor recalls with laughter the sight of Fayda's aunt running back into the house holding Fayda upside down. It was Fayda's mother that made such a remarkable influence on her life. For a small town girl from Lebanon, Fayda's mom had very liberated views and always encouraged Fayda to reach beyond the more traditional roles expected of women. It was at the age of seven that a neighbor explained what University was and Fayda decided she was going. Her father was the breadwinner of the household and she knew what it would take to grow up and be a decision maker. When her grade two teacher asked, "What do you want to be when you grow up?', Fayda innocently answered, "I want a man's job."

Coming out of high school, Fayda was interested in several subjects. Although all the career planning tests told her to go into Art, she was unclear what to do with her life, and thought she might want to go into medicine. However, in University she found that these courses could not keep her interested. Her first year was spent experimenting and only confused things. At the end of her first year, she went to Lebanon for the first time to teach English to grade two students. She returned to Calgary the following November due to the outbreak of the Gulf War. This experience affected Fayda and she realized how lucky she was to have a world of opportunity at her fingertips.

She went back to University with a different view of the world and a sudden need for accomplishment. The following year she took a geology class which opened her eyes up to Geophysics. Growing up in Calgary, her family spent a lot of time exploring the mountains and she deeply loved the outdoors. Geophysics was her connection to this. So that's what she decided to major in not knowing where a degree like this would take her. She initially thought she would use her Geophysics degree to help her get an environment-related job and never imagined working in resource exploration. However, a friend managed to get her a summer job at Morrision Petroleum in her second year of Geophysics. This was an eye-opening experience. She was so impressed with the company dynamics and the technology available. She enjoyed the work experience and decided to pursue this as a career.

She graduated from University in 1995 and started working on contract for Canadian Occidental. She worked on a project in the Con Son Basin in Vietnam. This excited her immensely as she loves to travel and is very interested in other cultures. In July 2000, she took a month off to travel in Vietnam and Thailand. Although Vietnam wasn't the easiest travelling, it was a very rewarding and enlightening experience. In early 1997, she started work at Upton Resources working in the Williston Basin. She got to acquire and interpret 3D's, and drill wells off her interpretation. She enjoyed the feeling of 'completion' on her projects. However, the Williston Basin in the eyes of a new explorationist was starting to seem smaller and smaller as the plays began to resemble one another. In 1998, she moved to Anderson Exploration for a greater challenge. At Anderson, she worked on large data sets on the Peace River Arch. In one area that she worked, there were over eighty 3D's, enough to keep one geophysicist happy for a while. She recently moved into the Deep Basin group at Anderson, which is now Devon Energy, and is working on the Halfway play. She has volunteered on several CSEC events over the years, and would like to continue doing so after her term is over. She also hopes to volunteer for some community organizations in the future.