HR: 16:45h
AN: ED34A-04    [Abstracts]
TI: One Employer's Viewpoint: What Does Our Future Geoscience Workforce Need to Do and Why Will Workforce Diversity Be Key?
AU: * Loudin, M G
EM: mike.loudin@exxonmobil.com
AF: ExxonMobil Exploration Company, 233 Benmar, Houston, Tx 77060, United States
AU: Summa, L L
EM: lori.l.summa@exxonmobil.com
AF: ExxonMobil Exploration Company, 233 Benmar, Houston, Tx 77060, United States
AB: Global economic growth will continue to result in rising demand for energy, with estimates of 50 percent growth in the world's energy usage by 2030 being commonplace. This challenge to energy producers is compounded by the natural production declines associated with existing oil and gas fields, and so the demands on our future workforce will be extraordinary. There is little doubt that the oil and gas resources we will be utilizing in the future will come from different geographies, will be sourced from different geological systems, and will be the result of using different, more complex technological approaches. Relative growth in production outside of North America and Europe means that there will generally be a premium on students from outside these areas. It also means that an even greater appreciation of non-Western cultures is in order, for employers, faculties, and students. We are already seeing a significant shift in the geological systems that host our resources and this shift is likely permanent. Carbonate systems have become much more important, as have structurally complex terranes, but these changes pale in comparison to an increasing reliance on low permeability, resource-bearing rocks that were not even considered as potential reservoirs 10 years ago. There will doubtless be new tools and measurements which will help us succeed in this new environment, but the most valuable approaches will involve bold, integrated, systemic hypotheses at basinal and planetary scales. The recent publication of global controls on carbonate rock formation represents an early example of such an approach. To generate bold new hypotheses, it is crucial that the scientific community not engage in "groupthink." We think that organizations that promote diversity in ideas and approaches will benefit most, and a diverse workforce is the best guarantor of diverse ideas. Against this background, energy and mineral companies are facing enormous changes in their workforces as the baby-boomer generation gives way to Generations X and Y. This certainly presents challenges to our ability to recruit and develop new talent, but it also presents unprecedented opportunities to increase workforce diversity. Using a global approach to hiring Geoscientists, we are making significant progress in achieving greater diversity with respect to gender, under-represented groups, cultural origins, and skills. Nevertheless, given the enormity of the task, we are intensely interested in a dialogue with academia on ways to increase students' diversity as well as their abilities to conceive the bold, integrated, systemic hypotheses that we will need to keep pace with global energy demand.
DE: 0810 Post-secondary education
DE: 0855 Diversity
DE: 3000 MARINE GEOLOGY AND GEOPHYSICS
DE: 3002 Continental shelf and slope processes (4219)
DE: 3022 Marine sediments: processes and transport
SC: Education and Human Resources [ED]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting