Tracing the Industry

Buy-Outs, An Incomplete History...

Buy-outs were started in the boom years. When professionals accepted a position with a new company it was usually accompanied by a substantial pay raise. I know my first move came with a 50% increase in salary! It became the custom that a person leaving a company was required to “buy-out” his colleagues. That meant buying all of their soon to be former colleagues drinks. No expense accounts, this is paid out of the departing employee’s own pocket. Buy-outs are a strictly adhered to custom and is considered a cost of doing business. I haven’t heard of too many people that have gotten away without having a buyout. And yes, Andy Marshall, sometimes you invite other people to your buy-out besides the people you work with. You can invite anyone you feel it necessary to buy drinks for. For example, people that you serve on committees with. Committees like the RECORDER.

Whoops…

In the June issue, page 42, Nikic Nick’s email address is listed as nnikolai@paradigmgeo.com, I need this to be altered please. The correct email address should be nnikic@paradigmgeo.com

On the Move...

Marc Rajotte has joined Primewest in the Central Alberta Group. You can reach Marc at 699-7453 or by email at marcr@primewestenergy.com.

Jerry Spring, formerly of Pioneer Natural Resources has joined Canadian Forest Oil. Jerry’s new email is jlspring@forestoil.ca; phone 292-8026 cell: 999-5670.

Stan Volk has joined Devon Energy since leaving ExxonMobil. “I’ll be Sr. Geophysicist working offshore Brazil exploitation out of Devon’s Houston office. Former friends and colleagues can visit me and my growing family (two kids on the ground and one due in Oct.) in the winter to thaw out in our backyard swimming pool. I can be found at stan.volk@dvn.com.”

BJV Exploration Partnership would like to advise our clients regarding a change of address and phone numbers effective August 1/05. Our new location will be #1680, 700-6 Ave. S.W. Calgary Ab. T2P0T8. John”s new number will be 266-3134, Jason 266-4004 and Kari 266-3707.

Goran Cotra joined Geophysical Service Incorporated – Precision Seismic Processing Division’s marine department as a Senior Processing Geophysicist. He has ten years of experience in the industry. You can reach Goran at 514-6257 or gcotra@geophysicalservice.com.

Armin Schafer has joined Vermilion Energy Trust as a Senior Geophysicist. Armin was formerly with ConocoPhillips Canada. You can reach Armin at aschafer@vermilionenergy.com or 355-3359.

Geomodeling Technology Corp. is pleased to announce the addition of new staff members to our North American offices:

Our Calgary software development team is joined by:

• Ying Chun Li, Senior Research Software Engineer
• Hong Feng, Software Quality Control Specialist
• James Wen, Software Quality Control Specialist

The Calgary office also welcomes:

• Mark Klingbeil, Controller and Chief Financial Officer
• Janice Liwanag, Technical Writer
• Marion Maurer, Administrative Assistant
• Andrea Peach, Graphic Designer and Marketing Assistant
• Shane Poluk, Geophysical Associate

In our Houston office, we welcome:

• Fred DuPont, Manager, Technical Solutions
• Phillip Levine, Geological Solutions Director
• Karl Seibert, Sales and Marketing Director, USA and Latin America

Murray Christie has re-located from Houston to Calgary to become our new Chief Operating Officer. We anticipate an exciting and busy year for our growing company!

Vincent Law has joined Direct Energy Resources as a Senior Geophysicist. You can reach Vince at 290-6942 or vincent.law@na.centrica.com.

Andrew Kryzan has left ConocoPhillips Canada. He had worked at ConocoPhillips and its predecessor companies from Gulf Canada Resources Ltd. heritage for 27 years. Andrew has joined Greyhawke Resources Ltd., a well capitalized new private junior oil and gas company, as Manager of Geophysics. He looks forward to the opportunity of working jointly with other former Gulf employees. He can be contacted at 264-1221 ext 233 or at AKryzan@Greyhawke.ca.

Wayne Gaskin has joined Advantage Energy Income Fund from Hunt Oil Company of Canada. He can be reached at 206- 9717 or wgaskin@advantageincome.com.

Stephen Beatty has left Petro-Canada to pursue new exploration opportunities with BG Canada as Geophysicist in their New Business Development group. Stephen can be reached at 403- 538-7461 or stephen.beatty@bg-canada.com.

Stephen Webster has left Husky Energy to join Esprit Energy Trust. You can reach Stephen at 213-3795 or swebster@eee.ca.

CGG Canada Services Ltd. is pleased to announce that Loretta Allison has joined us as a Seismic Processing Marketing Representative. Please contact Loretta at 266-1011 or lallison@cgg.com for any of your processing projects.

The Stork has Visited…

Hadrian Stirling Noble was born at 10:20 PM on the 11th July 2005, after 21 hours of hard labor, he was delivered at the Arbour Birthing Center in Calgary. He is 7 lbs 14 oz, he would have been 8 lbs but he pooped three times before being weighed! Proud parents are Mark (GX Technologies) and Suzy Noble.

New Degrees…

CREWES would like to congratulate Jeff Grossman on the successful defense of his Ph.D. thesis, and Kim Munro and Carlos Nieto on the successful defense of their M.Sc. theses, available at www.crewes.org.

Best wishes to each of them in their future endeavours.

Name of Author: Jeff Grossman
Ph.D. Thesis: Theory of Adaptive, Nonstationary Filtering in the Gabor Domain with Applications to Seismic Inversion.

Name of Author: Kimberly Munro
M.Sc Thesis: Analysis of Microseismic Event Picking with Applications to Landslide and Oil-Field Monitoring Settings

Name of Author: Carlos Nieto
M.Sc. Thesis: Multicomponent Seismic Exploration and Ground-Penetrating Radar Surveying in the Canadian Arctic.

How I Got Involved In Geophysics...

This portion of the Tracing the Industry column is where people share how they became involved in this strange industry. Geophysics seems to be an “accidental” profession. No one starts out with the goal of becoming a geophysicist. Each month I like to have someone trace their pathway into geophysics. If you would like to share your story, please let me know! CS

Jessica McPherson – Encana Corporation

I never suspected I would enter a degree even related to physics. I never took physics in high school, save for a chapter on Newton’s Laws in my grade 10 general science class. I originally began my degree in geology. However, I was distressed to learn that I had to take at least one first year physics course. Because I never took physics in high school, I had to take an evening prep course before I could get into the first year course. I hated it, probably mostly because I hated night classes. I was absent half the time and consequently, I struggled with the course, but I somehow managed to pass. When I entered the first year physics course, my only motivation was that I would never have to take another physics course again in my life. However, to my surprise, I really enjoyed the classes and wanted to take higher level courses, but there was not much room in the geology program to take many physics electives. That’s when I stumbled across the geophysics degree in the general calendar. I had no idea what it entailed, only that about one quarter of the degree involved physics courses, another quarter geology, which I was already interested in, and another quarter, math, which I seemed to have a knack for. The last quarter of the degree involved these “geophysics” courses. It seemed to be a good mix of areas I either liked or was good at, so I changed my major. I took my first introductory geophysics course in my second year, and I was hooked. I graduated May 2005 from the University of Manitoba and am now employed at EnCana.