President’s Letter

By Ben Burke

Welcome To Another Year of RMAG!

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season. Did anyone receive a lump of coal over the holidays? I’m sure that some of our membership are some of the few who would be excited to receive that gift now or at any time of the year. Oh the cleats, the geochemistry, and paleoenvironments!

I am humbled to be taking over as President of RMAG for 2023 after the capable leadership of Rob Diedrich as President and the entire 2022 Board of Directors. Your 2023 Board of Directors is a capable, eager, and diverse group of energy professionals volunteering their time for the Association and ready for an exciting year of programming.

You’ll notice that I used the term energy professionals rather than oil and gas professionals. RMAG is consciously broadening its focus areas away from an exclusive focus on petroleum geoscience to a diverse mix of geoscience disciplines, including many subsurface energy and energy-related disciplines like carbon capture and underground storage, known commonly by its acronym CCUS, helium, hydrogen, and geothermal. Energy will continue to be a major focus of RMAG programming given our membership’s overriding employment in the oil and gas industry. As I have experienced firsthand in my own professional move from oil and gas into geothermal energy, there’s more overlap than one might think in those two energy forms. The focus on reservoir is still there, the energy source and its flux or migration must be considered, and the trap, seal, and preservation of it, or the medium carrying it, must also be considered. No dull moments in energy!

We are excited to bring you a great lineup of speakers at our monthly in-person lunch at Maggiano’s Restaurant in downtown Denver. Come on down, up, or over for the event and meet some of your fellow RMAG members at the social time before the food is served and the talk begins. This month, we feature what promises to be a great talk by Trisha Curtis, CEO of Petronerds, providing an global overview of the energy industry. Plus, whether you are a season helium professional or just curious about the industry, the signature RMAG event of the first half of the year, the North American Helium Symposium, is happening at the Westminster Westin March 22nd and 23rd. Bringing together a high-quality array of upstream and midstream helium talks highlight research, exploration, and commercialization of helium at locations all over North America and all over the world, the event promises to be the premier helium event in the Denver area, and indeed in North America, for the year.

Our social event of the month is the RMAG Womens’ Coffee at Vibe Coffee Roasters on January 10th. As always, I urge to consider donating your time and/or financial resources to your RMAG if you are not already. Getting involved with a committee or helping to plan an event is a great way to meet new geoscience professionals in the region and broaden your network. Thank you to our sponsors, especially our Summit sponsors, for your ongoing support of RMAG.