The Advisory Council held their second meeting of the year February 23, 2001 in Tulsa in conjunction with AAPG Leadership Days. We had a very full day, as a variety of AC business items were addressed following a meeting of the Nominating Committee. Recommendations for candidates for the offices of President-Elect, Vice President and Treasurer were sent to the Executive Committee for their consideration and approval. The new slate of officers will be released following the 2001 election, which closes May 15.

Honors and Awards Nominations Due June 1

Before you board that plane to Denver to attend the national AAPG meeting, be sure to submit your nominations for AAPG honors and awards. For the first time, all nominations must be made on the new, standardized forms. These can be downloaded from the AAPG website, or I can e-mail or send hard copy to you. The Honors & Awards Committee will meet in August to select deserving candidates from those nominated by the membership for the Sidney Powers Award, Honorary Membership, the Michel T. Halbouty Human Needs Award, the Distinguished Educator Award, the Pioneer Award, the Public Service Award, and the Distinguished Service Award. For your convenience, I will attach a list of previous ES awardees at the end of these comments.

The new, expanded AC is now fully functional, with input from all six domestic sections, three international regions, the three divisions, and House of Delegates and previous members of the Executive Committee. Collectively, they are, in the words of Chairman Thomasson, A a quite impressive group of leaders.@ The Council is actively involved in its advisory role, as well as long range planning, honors and awards, and officer nominations.

A new award, the Outstanding Explorer Award, was recommend by the AC to the EC, who agreed to create the award. Thus, between now and June, you can nominate either an individual or a team who has been responsible for discovering a major petroleum or mineral resource. The discovery may have occurred at any time during their career, although there is an intended emphasis on recent discoveries. Details of this new award can be found on the AAPG website, along with a new form for nominations.

At the recommendation of the AC, the EC established a new Ethics Committee. The appointment of members to this committee have been made by the EC.

I served on a has a committee chaired by George Eynon to recommend Confidentiality Guidelines. Specifically, the charge to the committee was to address the need for confidentiality of the list of candidates for officers prior to the meeting of the Nominating Committee, discussions during meetings of the Nominating Committee, and the list of candidates submitted to the EC. The AC confirmed the absolute confidentiality of the final list of candidates provided by the AC to the EC; recommended that each Nominating Committee could determine whether or not to meet in Executive Session, and affirmed the absolute confidentiality of executive session if decided upon; affirmed that the privileges of executive session bear the responsibility of appropriateness of discussion of individual candidates and requires that all members provide appropriate control and censure of abuse of those privileges; and affirmed that the Nominating Committee members have the right and freedom to discuss declared candidates for office with the members they represent, and the right to solicit opinions and advice from various members at large. However, all such discussions must take place prior to the annual meeting of the Nominating Committee, and not thereafter.

Eddie David chaired a committee, on which I also served, to recommend new Nominating Committee Guidelines to be used by the Nominating Committee during their annual meetings to assure consistent and fair treatment of all persons nominated for office by the membership. A nine-step procedure was recommended and accepted by the AC for nominating, discussing and voting on candidates during meetings of the committee.

Dick Bishop chaired a committee charged with developing a business plan concerning the electronic future of AAPG. This committee worked with Executive Director Fritz to address the opportunities and challenges related to the issue. Some of the initial products will be developed by loading: data from the Bulletin (seismic lines, cross sections, etc); free GIS data; some maps for sale; selective maps and cross sections for a single basin; and all incoming digits from articles and books that already are in a GIS format.

My third committee assignment was on a committee chaired by Clint Moore to address membership retention through enhanced member services. The committee was charged with assessing what we have now, and then developing a new plan that would identify and prioritize programs and services that would provide the greatest number of benefits to the greatest number of members. A 10-point plan was presented to the AC in February, and subcommittees were appointed to develop implementation plans for each of the 10 suggestions. Lower cost registration fees, publications and short courses were among the suggestions, as well as better insurance coverage, expansion of the mid-career training centers, a career skills and member registry database, more exploration and production notes in the Bulletin, and an all-member survey to assess the usefulness of existing programs and services in the eyes of the members. I would be happy to receive comments from any ES member on one or more of these issues.

How many times, when Spring rolls around, have you heard that at the moment of the Spring equinox it is possible to stand an egg on its end? Well, yesterday was March 20 and Spring was due to arrive at 8:31 ET, so I got out an egg around 8:15 and tried to make it stand. I was close, but failed on 3 or 4 attempts, each a minute or so in duration, between 8:15 and 8:25. But, at 8:29 when I tried again the egg seemed to be pulled downward from my hand and stood quite easily. Five hours later it was still standing when an indifferent person, obviously not impressed to see an egg standing on its end, casually knocked it over.

At work we discussed the reasons that explain this phenominum, things like the rotation of the earth, inclination of the earth=s axis, etc, but when I got home I discovered the real answer. I had placed the egg on a coaster of Salem Limestone given to me when I registered for the ES meeting in Indianapolis. All you need is a firm foundation, provided by the AAPG.

As promised, here is a list of those members of the Eastern Section who have been recognized with national honors and awards:

John T. Galey (1990)

Gerald M. Friedman (2000)

Paul A. Catacosinos (2000)

Wallace de Witt, Jr. (1999)

Gerald M. Friedman (1990)

John T. Galey (1980)

George C. Grow, Jr. (19??)

Robert R. Jordan (1993)

Laurence l. Sloss (1981)

Carl J. Smith (2001)

Arthur Van Tyne (1996)

Larry D. Woodfork (1990)

Robert C. Milici (2001)

Distinguished Educator:

Laurence L. Sloss (1996)

Gerald M. Friedman (1996)

Gerald V. Middleton (1998)

Lloyd C. Pray (1998)

Roger G. Walker (1999)

Kenneth D. Owen (2001)

David Rice (2001)

(None)

John T. Galey (1974)

George V. Cohee (1977)

George C. Grow (!979)

Ralph L. Miller (1982 )

Richard F. Meyer (1982)

Dudley H. Cardwell (1984)

Larry D. Woodfork (1987)

Gerald M. Friedman (1988)

Robert R. Jordan (1988)

Paul A. Catacosinos (1993)

Carl J. Smith (1994)

Arthur Van Tyne (1994)

Jeffrey Greenawalt (1996)

G. Warfield Hobbs, IV (1996)

Brian D. Keith (1998)

Roy Nurmi (1999)

Douglas G. Patchen (1999)

James A. Noel (1999)

A list of impressive people, but perhaps not an impressive list. We have other worthy candidates that have not yet been considered for these awards. It is surprising that in a section like ours where the public sector is so actively involved in AAPG activities and in promoting and creating industry-government partnerships that no one has been nominated and selected for the Public Service Award. So, those of you who are reading this, please take the time to read the award criteria and make your nominations either through me or directly to Regina Gill at AAPG headquarters. And, be sure to use the new forms.

Let=s Get Out the Vote

One last thing before I sign off. My extended 5-year term expires June 30, so between now and then all ES members will receive a ballot in the mail for the next ES Councilor to the Advisory Council. Please take the time to examine the bios of the candidates and return your ballot by the deadline.