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I’d like to start on a positive note and recognize two SPE Dallas volunteers. Robert Martinez has been awarded Engineer of the Year and will be honored at the Texas Society of Professional Engineers “Engineers Week” Annual Awards Luncheon in February. Robert has served SPE Dallas in several capacities over years. He served as Chairperson for the 2018-2019 cycle and started a membership initiative that is still ongoing. Kristi Bartlett has been awarded Young Engineer of the Year and will be honored at the same event. She has served SPE Dallas in several capacities, and is currently our Student Liaison and manages our LinkedIn page. She designed, ordered and distributed the shirts we sold last year, and has developed initiatives that will help grow our summer intern attendance as well as expand our scholarship reach. If you see either of them, please congratulate them on all their hard work and effort.

I’d like to also thank Jeremy Owens with Pioneer Natural Resources for stepping up and volunteering as a judge on behalf of SPE Dallas for the Future City Competition. Please thank Jeremy, Kristi and Robert for the volunteer efforts.

Kristi and Robert are both diligent professionals (I can vouch for them). Both, knowingly or unknowingly, use mental models to accomplish their work. Mental models are shortcuts, or “hacks” we use consciously or subconsciously to solve problems. They are powerful. They can help us when we’re sometimes stupid (tired, emotional, in a strange scenario). Mental models can help us overcome our own subconscious biases. We all have biases we may or may not be aware of.  While they’re great, we can also become too dependent on them. One example I can think of in work was repeated attempts at acidizing a well that wouldn’t flow and thinking we just hadn’t acidized enough. Luckily, I had some help from others to bring me down off my acid trip.

One way to think about this is from a professional perspective. When a biologist sees a beach, they think of an ecosystem of tons of creatures working symbiotically to survive. A geologist might see that same beach as a series of processes that are creating a depositional environment. A developer would see a potential business venture in the form of a resort. An engineer wouldn’t see the beach because there’s no commercial/industrial use or problem to solve.

A more well-rounded lattice work of thoughts would be beneficial everyone mentioned above. The developer (with the help of the biologist and geologist) could build a resort that minimizes impact to the ecosystem and physical processes in place, and the engineer would eventually learn to see a vacation spot.  The way to achieve this well-roundedness is to think more slowly.

This type of web of thoughts has allowed our industry to thrive in a “lower for longer environment” over the last few years as Mary Van Domelen (Distinguished Lecturer) told us last month. E&P deals seem to have been going down, and the Study Group saw an analysis of those on the 22^nd. Keep your eyes open for advertising on the upcoming frac modeling talk in the study group, and make sure to see our last DL of the year, Lawrence Camilleri.