I hope everyone is having a wonderful summer.   Your ETGS board of directors is preparing for another informative, educational and fun year of events.

The first thing on the agenda is a Social at the Rose City Draft House, August 24th 5-7 pm, ETGS will provide the food, and drinks will be discounted.  We copied the Dallas Geological Society in having an end of summer social to reconnect, check your membership status, and have a good time.   Please thank Hunter Carr when you see him for doing a great job organizing our socials.

Many of you attended the Basic Log Interpretation class in July taught by Paul Hene.  The popularity of it took us by surprise.  There was so much interest that Paul had to divide the class into two days.  We were fortunate to be able to offer it for free, including lunch and breakfast, thanks to the generosity of so many people:  First and foremost Paul for donating all his time and considerable talent to teach and organize the class, John Jacobi of Covey Park Energy for sponsoring lunch, XTO for donating the conference room, and Schlumberger for donating the manuals and coffee. 

It has been my honor and a privilege to serve as President of this society.  Particularly since ETGS has such a talented and dedicated group of volunteers, from the committee chairs that organize our events, to our scholarship and education committees who help to educate and bring more young people into our profession.  Also Barbara Cade, our administrative assistant, and Rachel McNerney (Hill), our webmaster, do a great job of keeping us organized, communicating and on track.  I thought this would be my last newsletter; however, since no one else has stepped forward and it has been so much fun, I look forward to serving another year.

I hope those of you that made it to AAPG ACE in Houston last month enjoyed it as much as I did.  There were lots of good talks and poster sessions, just not enough time to see them all. I even won a beautiful Brunton AXIS transit from Forestry Suppliers.  It is a great tool for field work and I am happy to lend it out, if anyone wants use it.   Thank you Kathy Moore, manager of Petroleum Data Library in Tyler, for staffing our booth at ACE.  She did a wonderful job representing us and signed up some new members.

I am so grateful to everyone that participated in all the exciting events last week. Monday, the Tyler Area Energy Summit hosted three very interesting speakers over lunch. They reminded us how important our industry is to our modern way of life.  That evening we had a full turnout at the Ice Breaker for the Tech and Prospect Expo, thanks go to Carl Gray for setting it up.  On Tuesday the Tech and Prospect Expo was a great success due to the hard work of Matt Bailey and Barbara Cade. We really appreciate all the participants and those that rented booths, also our speakers, John Jacobi and Dr. Scott Tinker. The message that came through to me from these talks was that the fossil fuel industry has an image problem. Much of that is due to a lack of knowledge on the part of the general public. We need to be better ambassadors for our industry, reminding the public of the benefits of fossil fuels, since there is so much focus on the risks and downside. I thought Scott Tinker made a good point: We can gain credibility with a balanced, scientific message instead of a polarized political one. It is a tough challenge these days.