Volunteer Spotlight

Emerging Professionals Program (EPP) Committee

The Emerging Professionals Program (EPP) is one of the newer CSEG member-led initiatives currently chaired by Dan Loas and CSEG Member Services Director Stephen Kotkas. The EPP team, which includes Jeff Calvert, Chau Huynh, Brian Schulte, Hassan Odhwani, Sean Lovric, Karl Mome, RJ Vestrum, Jennifer Welsh and Elizabeth Ramsey, works to provide learning opportunities for CSEG members focusing on new graduates with less than 5 years of experience. They cover technical, networking and employability skills and have a strong collaboration with the SPE, CSPG, SEG and CWLS. In this column we hear from some of the leaders of the EPP initiative so read on, get involved and help the EPP thrive in its second year.

Jeff Calvert, EPP Vice-Chair, visited a CSEG booth during a University of Calgary career fair, was invited to a Geophysics Industry Field Trip (GIFT) event and realised that being involved was a great way to meet people and learn more about geophysics. Every time he attends a CSEG event he feels the sense of community – and that is what he enjoys most about volunteering although he admits it is a challenge to balance work, volunteering and social activities. If you meet him at an event, ask him about his motorcycle trip to Vietnam – I will!

Jeff became involved with the EPP because it sounded like an exciting initiative. With many resources for students and experienced professionals the CSEG was missing the people in-between, including Jeff himself. As a 2014 University of Calgary Geophysics and Geology graduate, he acknowledges that this is especially critical in a downturn as we are…
in danger of losing bright people who may change career.

Chau Huynh, EPP Communications, first started volunteering with the CSEG while still at the University of Calgary when she and a classmate helped develop an educational resource for teachers that is available on the CSEG website (see Students/K-12 & Teachers). Chau is passionate about helping others learn and also tenacious – despite starting a degree in Biological Sciences she made a self-confessed difficult switch to Geophysics and graduated with a dual degree in 2014. Soon after graduation Chau travelled to Japan where “the culture, people and food were amazing!” Now that she is back in Calgary working in the industry as a Geophysicist in Training, she continues to volunteer with the CSEG because she enjoys meeting different people and feels a sense of satisfaction that she has made a difference in someone’s life. She notes that each year the number of geoscience graduates increases, making it more difficult to find work and so, as a graduate herself, it is inspiring to know that Chau volunteers with the CSEG EPP to...
help graduates stay connected and current in the field.

Brian Schulte, EPP Senior Advisor, is well known to many in the industry through technical papers and symposia yet this is the first committee that he has volunteered on – and he did so because he observed how socially conscious Ryan Cox and Jeff Calvert were. When he graduated in 1989, there was very little help for graduates and Brian credits a few chance meetings as getting him to where he is today so now he feels that it important to help improve things for graduates. Brian sees the EPP growing to a stage whereby there is one event per month – but the challenge is to have industry professionals and companies volunteer to give talks and to provide details so that the talks can be organised logically and efficiently.

When you consider that Brian has travelled to Barrow, Alaska and Ushuaia, Argentina, seen Antarctica and crossed the equator by sea, it is understandable the Calgary traffic frustrates him and that you’d find enjoying C-Train enjoying the characters on board. Beyond the EPP, Brian feels a sense of community within the CSEG at luncheons, symposia and working with RECORDER staff when he sees people giving to further a science that they love. He comments that...
In these bad times, it is all about a love for what we do.

Interested in Volunteering?

Interested volunteers are invited to contact the CSEG at office@cseg.ca. If you are able to volunteer to give an EPP talk, seminar or workshop please contact the committee directly at epp@cseg.ca.