Tracing the Industry

I hope everyone had a lovely summer! I have been keeping a very low profile in 2009 and many people have asked me where I have been. In January I was diagnosed with a bulging disk. So since January I have been undergoing extensive physiotherapy in order to heal my back and make surgery unnecessary. I am sure I spend more time in the gym than at home! I am thrilled to say my back is 90% healed and I won’t have to have surgery! I am back working as a headhunter and will be out and about a lot more! Thanks to everyone that was so supportive while I was going through this process.

IN MEMORY OF...

Over the last few years Hank Geerlof has been a regular contributor to the “Giving Back” portion of this column. Hank was very involved in Betty’s run for ALS and kept the geophysical community updated on his efforts to raise money to help combat this disease. My sincerest sympathies to his family and friends. Hank will be missed. CS

Hendrik (Hank) Geerlof
November 18, 1944-August 2, 2009

Hank Geerlof passed away on August 2, 2009 at the Beverly Centre (Midnapore). Predeceased by Nelly, his wife of thirtyfour years, Hank is lovingly remembered by his children, Derek (Colleen), Stephen (Angie), Becky (Brian) and Beverly (Jeremy); his grandchildren: Austin, Dante, Caleb, Chandler, Ethan, Erin, Katherine, Isaac and Josh; and his sisters: Mary and Carolyn. Born in Baarn Netherlands, Hank immigrated to Ontario with his family at the age of nine. After graduating from McMaster University in honours Mathematics, Hank moved to Calgary beginning a long career in geophysics. Before being diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehring’s disease) Hank was an avid hiker and cyclist and due to some spectacular collisions was fondly referred to as “the only Dutchman who couldn’t ride a bike.” Active in both his faith and Church, Hank fought the goof fight and kept his faith. The family extends their gratefulness to the ALS Society of Alberta, the ALS clinic (Foothills Hospital), the Beverly Centre staff, Murphy Iil and Hanks family at Midpark Christian Assembly.

ON THE MOVE...

Olympic Seismic Ltd. is pleased to announce that David A. Richard has joined their organization as President, effective July 1, 2009. David served as Senior Vice-President of Seitel, Inc. (Olympic’s U.S. parent company) for the last year with corporate business development responsibilities in both the U.S. and Canada. Prior positions include founder, CEO of FX Energy Ltd. and CEO of Kelman Technologies Inc. David can be reached at drichard@olysei.com or at (403) 515-5872.

Nilanjan Ganguly has joined Africa Oil as a Senior Geophysicist. He can be reached at: nilanjan.ganguly@africa oilcorp.com or by phone at 403-984-5602.

Nanna Eliuk is pleased to announce that she has taken on a new venture with Waldron Energy as of August 1st. Nanna can be reached at 403-532-0022 or neliuk@waldronenergy.ca

Marko Mah is pleased to announce to his friends and colleagues that he is working as a Senior Staff Geophysicist at Waseca Energy. He has previously worked in Calgary, Singapore, and Norway as a seismic processor, researcher, and interpreter before joining Waseca. Marko can be reached at 403.718.9226 or via email at mmah@wasecaenergy.com.

GIVING BACK...

This portion of the Tracing the Industry column gives members of the geophysical community to share their volunteer efforts with the RECORDER readers. If you would like to share information about your charity and volunteer efforts, please contact me. It is a great chance to interest others in your charity and you may even get some new volunteers. CS

Roger Bilger, HCL National
A Hair-Raising Experience

What started out as an innocent afternoon cocktail with a couple of friends / colleagues on a relatively normal January day, soon became a late dinner as it often does in the wonderful world of seismic. One of the gentlemen with me was Clair Dow, and as most of you know Clair, with the help of other volunteers, organize the “Tough Times” golf tournament every June. Over a glass of wine (or two) this topic of conversation comes up and much to my concern Clair mentions to everyone at our table that he thinks I would be a perfect candidate to raise money this year! I know what this involves and I don’t mind telling you that I started to panic!! He wanted me to “Shave my Lid for a Kid” (through The Kid’s Cancer Care Foundation) and give up my most signature attribute! (Anyone that really knows me, will know that my heart rate doubled at this moment!) I knew that a few years back Clair had shaved his hair off at this same tournament, and somehow I had feared this day would come, and it would be my turn. Not knowing what freakish marks may lurk beneath my hair or what the shape of my skull was going to be like was running through my mind the entire dinner. I knew this wasn’t going to end well….for me. The others at the table were snickering and mirrored my look of disbelief that anyone could get me to shave my head. True to form, Clair began talking up the Foundation and telling me how much I could help these kid’s out by volunteering. There are a lot of people that would donate a lot of money to see me fret and squirm at the thought of being bald. I guess there is a price to pay for vanity! All I could tell Clair that evening was that I would let him know; I could tell he knew I was going to do it all along – so did I. That night I asked my wife Rigel what she thought of me going bald for the sake of raising some money to send a few kid’s to camp. She thought it was a great idea and laughed while she felt my skull and played on all my fears finally saying “its just hair and it will all come back!”…will it though, I thought to myself? Later that week I let Clair know he could count on the “pretty boy” to shave his head in front of 200+ friends and acquaintances for charity!

A few months went by before I started having nightmares of being bald on a daily basis; naturally people who heard what I was doing couldn’t help themselves from making this as traumatic as possible for me! Everyone had a story that started with “I knew this guy once..” or “My friends dad….”, and ended with “..it never came back!” or “…it came back in patches!” All of a sudden everybody new somebody with a horror story to tell!! When you hear these stories over & over you start to think there is some truth to them! I would go home to my wife and pass along all this information and she would shake her head and laugh at my overreaction, re-assuring me that it was going to be alright…I admit I was a bit of a whiner! Around the beginning of May, Charlie Trefanenko (who loved to comment on my pretty boy hair) gave me all the contact information for The Kid’s Cancer Care Foundation to get started on pledging for my head shave. I sent out the email to everyone to let them know what I was doing and how they could support me. I was scared but obviously there was no turning back at this point. A good friends and neighbour pretty much summed it up for me at this point when he wrote, “suck it up princess!” and told me to quit whining about my hair! In my mind this was a life changing event for me! I may as well have been losing a limb!! I didn’t want to do this for nothing so I was bound and determined to make this worth my while and really try to raise as much as I could. Some took advantage of this desperation. About 10 days before the tournament, I found myself doing things for money I would never have had the nerve to do before. Ok, stop right there! Let me elaborate… We were at the Muskeg golf tournament in Edmonton. I was working the room trying rally some last minute donations for the kids, when Marty Summerville spotted an opportunity. I was going to have to do more than just shave my head for his money! Mission #1 – walk up to Marty’s son-in-law (at least I think it was, maybe he was a prospect) and cut his brand new college tie off at the knot with a pair a scissors! Mission #2 – Walk right up to Glen Verbaan and rip his shirt open with my bare hands, much to his shock and horror! Missions complete! I expected raising money to be a big challenge considering the economy the past year, but everyone really came through! Once the donations started coming in my nervous thoughts turned into thoughts of excitement that “I’m really going to do this, it won’t be that bad – it’s summer time and I can hide out on holidays until it starts growing back and it’s for such a great cause”! As the day got closer my patience with my hair grew shorter and shorter as my hair got longer and longer – it was time… getting ready in the morning was a chore now and I was kind of looking forward to it.

June 18th arrived and boy was I nervous again! It was going to be a while before I used all my “products” again. Even a brush wouldn’t be a necessity for a while. These rituals were a part of my life for a good 30 years and I am a high maintenance guy! Rigel was kind-of excited that a new man was going to be in her bed that night (I made it home by-the-way, and she thought I looked like David Beckham, which she said was fine with her!). The whole day in Nanton was surreal (not just from the tequila) but I was truly out of sorts and freaking out, which was obvious by my golf game! Thanks to Wendy Whitlock and special thanks to Shael and Keely Zamiski my hair raising experience on stage wasn’t as traumatic as I thought it would be. It took a little longer than I expected, but the minutes we feeling like hours as I waited to see what I would look like with no hair. In the end I have to say, I didn’t actually mind it when I finally got to the mirror at the Nanton Community Center. I’m a good looking dude with or without hair!! I really wasn’t looking forward to having to rely solely on my winning personality for the next 3 or 4 months to get by on!!

On the day of the tournament my goal of raising $15,000.00 was about $3500 short. Thanks to Dave Grindell’s perseverance and taking time out to hit you all up once again at the community center we raised another $3400. In addition Marinus Snyders generously contributed his 50/50 winnings to bring us over $16,000.00 in total! I am a very lucky man. I have a wonderful family, 2 healthy kids and a loving wife. If that’s all I had I would be blessed. But I also have had the chance to meet some truly wonderful people in this industry over the last couple of years and I am proud to be surrounded by such incredibly generous and caring individuals. I am proud to call you all my friends and I thank you so much for your support. My role was small, but what we did together was huge! From what I understand we are sending about 10 brave and deserving kids to camp for a week on what we raised for The Kids Cancer Care Foundation!! Kudos to you all!