President’s Letter – David Cannon

Greetings members! I am honored to have been elected the WTGS President for 2022-2023. I look forward to helping steward the preeminent regional subsurface society in North America. As the Permian Basin has fully transitioned towards unconventional and hybrid horizontal plays, we too, as subsurface professionals, must transition to new workflows and learnings while honoring our past achievements. This means we must provide our community more opportunities for learning and knowledge sharing, so we can maximize our profitability from this basin and stay relevant, regardless of economic and political pressure. While our yearly program will generally remain the same, we will work to add opportunities where possible. Additional short course opportunities, subtle changes to the Fall Symposium, reimagined field opportunities, and a broader reach for invited luncheon speakers will all be endeavored upon in the coming year.

In addition to these technical goals for the Society, we must focus on broadening our appeal to more of our membership. Providing more inclusive networking opportunities will be a focus for us this year. This focus will be in addition to our successful, traditional networking opportunities such as the golf tournament, sporting clays, and social hours. We will focus on bringing new, additional opportunities that may appeal to more our membership, for example, family-oriented events such as nights at the Rockhounds, Jackalopes, biking outings at the new Permian Basin Cycling Association course, and Green Acres. We will also look for opportunities to have our membership do more for our local community. During these times of plenty, we have a duty to do what we can to lift those who cannot lift themselves. Giving back to the community and area that have given us so much, should be a major focus of our society.

To help in this effort to find new opportunities for our Society, I will be conscripting the help of our current executive board; Judd Tudor (Drill2Frac) as 1^st VP, John Bertalott (ConocoPhillips) as 2^nd VP, Emily Troxell (Chevron) as Secretary, Ashton Faulkner-Bruyere (Beryl) as Treasurer, and Andrews Quarles (Endeavor) as President-Elect. In addition to this esteemed board of volunteer officers, I have also tapped the assistance of three additional people to head our efforts to enhance our technical, social, and outreach efforts. Luis Baez (ConocoPhillips) will be our Technical Chair and will head efforts to build a sound technical program focusing on the current challenges of our industry. Oniel Wint (Schlumberger) will serve as our Social Chair and will work to provide additional opportunities to network that appeal to our entire membership. Eric Cummins (Four Corners Helium) will serve as our Outreach Chair, focusing on efforts to provide youth outreach and opportunities for our society to serve the underprivileged.

I look forward to this year and where we can take our society. However, we need more help than from those I mentioned. We need your help. We need commitment to these current and new opportunities to enhance our technical, social, and outreach goals. I look forward to partnering with you all in achieving these goals and continuing to position WTGS as the best available society to our subsurface professionals. Some of the changes may be unfamiliar and uncomfortable, but I tend to live by the following Latin proverb, Audentes Fortuna Iuvat, or Fortune Favors the Bold. We cannot continue to improve unless we have the courage to do so. We owe it to future subsurface professionals.