What The Funk?

0:00 Tim, we are back with a doctor this week. I know some people call me Dr. Funk and say, I'm not a doctor, I have no qualifications as such. We have a real doctor here. This is going to be pretty

0:12 good. I didn't, honestly, the first time I met him, I didn't even know the word doctor was in was should be in front of his name. Professor? Doctor? No. I met him out in the industry. I had

0:24 no idea he'd gotten his PhD, so I completely missed it He invited me over to Lafayette and said, Hey, come, we got this opportunity over here. Come show this thing to me. And I go out there and

0:34 we yuck it up and spend a few days, if you spend a day in Lafayette, and then I head back to Houston and that's that, so interesting. So yeah, go ahead. I was going to say with that, I mean, I

0:44 asked Dr. Jeffrey Spath, the department head of petroleum engineering at Texas AM University to come on. I think it's pretty topical talking about Gigum They're all decked out. I'm all set up. I

0:59 was all geeked up for this thing so I got my Hat and Jacket on and everything but you know I thought it'd be interesting to talk about energy transition and what's it like to be a department head at a

1:10 university with ID and all the other things going on there's a lot of distraction so that'd be really good to bring on doctors bath so doctors fath welcome on to tripping over the barrel it's a good

1:21 to have you thanks for having me Damn it I know we've we've tried for many months to get this together so I'm Glad it's finally happening Yeah well I mean I obviously you're I know the kind of a busy

1:37 -ness we were talking about before we got on the air the types of things you have to deal with day to day what types of fires come up all the time so it is difficult to kind of get a block of time for

1:46 something like this and we really appreciate you coming on well I'm happy to do it I think it's an interesting time in Petroleum engineering education so I'm sure we're going to touch on on quite a

1:57 few interesting subjects our We're all fired up about it, energy transition, everything that's going on in the world, COVID-8, there's a lot to go over. And coming in after, this should be after

2:10 Laura Palmer, right? I think in this sequence. And we talked a lot about Bitcoin mining and how that's going to play sort of into the future here. We talked about ESG energy transition. And also

2:24 about some of the mindset from the kids at the School of Mines who I met with Colin McClellan and a few others last week out here in Colorado, a smaller group than I think traditionally they've had.

2:36 But I think that's a good segue into Dr. Spath, your viewpoint, right? So I'm curious just as someone who's in the industry. And at this point, I'm sort of stuck. Like I'm not going anywhere.

2:48 But what is the mindset of the people who are 19 to 22, 23 years old on you're going into an industry that is clearly facing scrutiny under the current administration. Change is inevitable, a focus

3:02 on ESG, energy transition is in play, but we talk about this all the time, Tim. Oil and gas isn't going away anytime soon. 100 million doesn't go to zero overnight. So I'm curious, Dr. Spath,

3:15 what you see, sort of from your purview at Texas AM and the Reservoir Engineering Department, and then take us a little bit about your path to where you got today. Petroleum Engineering.

3:28 Reservoir's a small part I'm sure I don't want to have him having to correct you. I'll do it. I was rolling, I was tripping over my words. I mean, I'm not the engineer here, so I'm trying.

3:38 There we go. Well, we'll cut you some slack.

3:42 So to the first part of your question, what attracts the 19 to 21 year olds to this industry? I think one of the things particularly here at AM, we're fortunate that we're a little over an hour

3:56 from the energy capital of the world And so a lot of our. Students and prospective students come from the oil and gas. They come, you know, their mother, their father, their uncle, they're,

4:08 you know, somebody in the family has been in the industry. And so we get a lot of, we get a lot of students from petroleum engineering families. And, you know, that's, like I said, that's

4:19 fortunate for us being so close to Houston. But I think the other thing you hit on is relevant, which is they know, at least most of them and all of them should know, that oil and gas is not going

4:33 away. And, you know, coming out of high school, if they had a tendency, if they excelled in math and science and physics and all the rest, and they knew they wanted to be an engineer and they

4:43 were intrigued by the oil and gas business, then most of them continued on their way. And of course, myself and our team of advisors and our faculty, former students, We all do marketing of

4:58 trying to get. perspective students to join our department. And we do that by, you know, a lot of the things we're probably gonna talk about, which is the fact that oil and gas isn't going away,

5:12 energy demand is going to increase the population. We know that, energy intensity is increasing. And so, you know, with respect to all of the competing energy sources, you know, I'm very

5:28 optimistic about this industry, obviously. And I think I share that

5:36 optimism with the faculty here and with former students. And so it's kind of a, it's kind of, there's a lot of us that spend a lot of our time working with prospective students, getting them to

5:47 come here. Now, to the second part of your question, things were a little different when I got out of school, you know, in

5:58 the old days. the mid '80s, I got out in 1984, which was a horrible time to get out. I think it's gotta be as bad as it gets, right? '83 could be the only worse, I think. Slightly worse,

6:11 you're right. I didn't quite time it as badly as possible, but what's interesting is if you did a time shift of 35 years or so, you can exactly overlay the almost bell-shaped curve from the '80s to

6:29 today. And what I tell students, I tell a lot of the students, I wish I was a freshman or sophomore right now in control and engineering. Because in the next few years, there's gonna be a demand

6:42 like you have never seen. Well, we saw it in the early '90s, right? And we saw it as recently as the early

6:52 2010s, when because of lack of investment, because of lack of capital, because of lack of recruiting. If you're about to get out

7:02 with a petroleum engineering degree, you're going to write your own ticket. But going back to the '80s, I had exactly one job offer. And so guess what? I took it. It was with a

7:16 city area at that time of Somerjay called Flow Patrol Johnston. And they did well testing. I'm sure Tim remembers that company I did,

7:26 as it was my only offer, I didn't hesitate. And I spent the first two to three years of

7:35 my career working in horrible conditions in the swamps of South Louisiana and offshore and dirty coveralls, running drill stem tests, thinking, what the hell did I just get a four-year petroleum

7:49 engineering degree for? And look at what I'm doing Probably swinging a sledgehammer a time or two. Yeah, hauling a - you know, using a 36-inch. pipe wrench to break connections and it was

8:02 horrible. I'm smiling because this is what I did with Dowell. I'm out there making a pipe swinging sledge hammers. Yeah, hauling chicksens. I know, I did that too. And so, looking back, I

8:15 wouldn't have traded that for anything and it made great experience for today when I advise students and they come and say, hey,

8:24 what do you think about going to work for a service company, you know, they, a lot of students think that that's second fiddle or, you know, they'd rather go to work for a major producer and I

8:35 say, no, no, no, no, no, no. There's nothing wrong with going to work for a major producer, but working for a service company, you have so much more opportunity, both geographically and

8:48 domain wise. I mean, it's Tim knows, so I ended up spending 32 years slumber jay and I did everything from swing. swinging a sledgehammer to executive manager. So let's hit on that a little bit.

9:07 Sales, engineering, marketing, everything else in between. I want to hit on that a little bit. There's a lot of ways to go with this, but I felt pressure when I was in school, I'm class of '92,

9:18 so maybe a couple of years after you, zips. I felt a zips '92. I felt a lot of pressure to go to work for an operator or a major, so a name that I had heard of before I even started school. And I

9:35 felt like there was a, you accept the job with Dow well or key services or whoever else is hiring out there in service industry, which at the time was still, that was the predominant hiring in '92

9:48 anyway.

9:51 And it was a great experience to go that route. And it's really, I've never gone to work, I've never worked in an operator before. How does, I think that still exists. Everyone that, I'm sure

10:04 these guys want to come out and go work for Oxy or Chevron or something like that. And these names, I know. Yeah, yeah. Is there still that pressure that you don't want to go work for a service

10:15 company? Because that's where the research, that's where all the new stuff is coming. I wouldn't, I don't know if I'd call it pressure. First of all, thanks for saying that you're only a few

10:25 years behind me But anyway, it's not so much pressure because right now with the job market as it is, they're taking whatever jobs they can get, but I certainly encourage them to not just focus on

10:41 the oxies and the chevrons and the exons and all their rest. In fact, the first of every semester, I get them together and I play a trick on them. I ask them what it is they wanna do in their

10:55 career I said, How many, if you want to work? all over the globe and exciting, sometimes hostile conditions raise your hands. Most of them normally raise their hands. And I said, if you wanna

11:08 work in a variety of domains such as sales or research or marketing or engineering or out in the field or management, if you wanna have that flexibility, raise your hand. And of course, most of

11:23 them raise their hands. And I ask them three or four questions and then I say, okay, well, I guess none of you wanna go to work for a major old company. You don't work for the operator then,

11:35 dude. You just go to work for a big service company. Now you mentioned key services. Okay, you know, if that's your job offer, go take it and work hard and work your way up and everything else.

11:46 But if you're talking about Summergate, Halliburton, Baker, GE, you know, technique, some of

11:53 these bigger companies, you're gonna see the world, You're gonna do everything from A to Z. and you're gonna have a fabulous career. Yeah, and their job's gonna change every year and a half about?

12:05 Yeah, and likely so is your location. And of course, that's good for some and not so good for others, so. Well, that's Tim and I are not chill. I don't wanna go anywhere I'm staying in the

12:17 house that I'm gonna be in forever and Tim's ready to go to, I don't know, Indonesia or Abu Dhabi or wherever they wanna send him, right? Well, it's funny you mention Indonesia because we lived

12:27 all over the world and if you ask my kids what their favorite place was and we lived in Paris and London and Rio and all the rest of them, they choose Indonesia. Wow. It was just so, I

12:44 mean, it was exotic, you know? Who'd have thought that we'd be living in Jakarta where, you know, we're a one hour flight from Bali, we're an hour and a half flight from Thailand We Saw We Saw

12:58 All of Asia and My three year stint there and now it wasn't without its I will pretend it wasn't without it's you know downsides every every Houston has it's downsides and you know I remember and we

13:12 make we may get to some travel stories later but I remember one of my favorites was being woke up in the middle of the night in Jakarta and being asked to gather what I could take with me and my wife

13:24 and children and gotten the back of a jeep with rancher automatic weapons and driven to the military base so we could be

13:37 evacuated to Singapore so why was I not jerking during the Bali terrace attacker well no as during the overthrow of Suharto President Suharto Okay and were actually evacuated twice once when the

13:53 families were there which was obviously not very fun, but once when it was just the guys, or that I should say the essential staff, and all we could do, Tim, was stay there two weeks and do

14:06 nothing but play golf. So that was, you

14:11 know, there's good and bad say every place, but anyway,

14:15 back to the point. The point is, if you wanna move around the world and see exciting places,

14:23 you know, these days, you can do that with the Chevron and ExxonMobil, but in the '80s, you know, it was the big service companies that provided that opportunity. Yeah, so you mentioned the

14:35 students that go to Texas AM and become petroleum engineers are oftentimes legacies, right? Maybe people that had even gone to AM, you know, in their family or people whose parents had worked in

14:46 the industry. I'm wondering if that means when you have these kids that are enrolling right out of high school, Do they have a pretty high level understanding already of oil and gas and you don't

14:57 really need to start on chapter one or do you go back and say, wipe the slate clean from everything your mom and dad told you at the table over Thanksgiving and this is how we teach a petroleum

15:08 engineer. Yeah, well, it varies of course. We get a lot of students

15:14 who don't know anything about the business and we have to

15:19 try to shift their thinking from what they read in the media and what they hear on the news and what the politicians try to tell them and everything else and it's pretty easy to convince them if

15:29 they're

15:31 up on current events and all they're asked to realize that petroleum engineering is a deal that's gonna be around for decades to come.

15:42 The other thing though is like I said in the beginning, we do a lot of marketing and as with a lot of universities Now, our freshman year. Curriculum and engineering is common okay so doesn't

15:57 matter for petroleum civil nuclear aerospace Blah Blah Blah B your first year curriculum is identical and so you have that year on campus to check out all of these different majors all of these

16:10 different departments and so the department's like ours we have events throughout the year where we invite freshmen we we give them free pizza to make sure they show up and then we we teach them a

16:21 little bit about the oil and gas industry we may show them a video I'll speak out you know we've got excellent faculty here a lot of whom have spent their early careers in industry so you know it's

16:34 really a competition to try to attract these students to the respective departments and we when we talk about what we just talked about which is you know a global working environment the flexibility

16:47 to do whatever you want to do and oH by the way the highest paying Salary of any major on Campus You know out I always try to save that one until last

17:01 you know I don't want to try to lead them onto the two salaries but that's a fact petroleum engineering is the highest paying profession coming out of university that's published all over the place so

17:15 so it's a little bit above it to that was itching Yeah I was one of those guys that I was I was attracted in because of the scholarships they were offering back in the mid -nineties basically to

17:26 anyone who took the S A T let alone scored well on it so I came in took you know took some Scholarship money and I really liked it but I knew nothing about the industry other than you know what I put

17:39 in my car and the first thing I had to learn in Doctor Russell's class was I had no concept of porosity I thought in fact We were drilling into a cave in the ground and the oil was sitting in A and we

17:55 do a horrible job in the industry labeling things we call it a barrel of oil in fact it was a pool it's ok we all thought that death is really funny so that we drilling into a cave we're going to suck

18:07 it out of some underground cave and sick instead it's in you know basically microscopic pores that we're pulling out of rocks that that's a that's a good subject to transition into because of Course I

18:18 thought the same thing I'm teasing you and most people do think that you just put a big straw in it you know and and second out but but one of the things I mention I make sure I mentioned far before I

18:30 talk about salaries is how exciting the technologies are in this industry I mean when you think about what we do as a profession it's really it's really Awesome you know when you combine soon when you

18:47 think about

18:49 drilling into a reservoir that might be as small as this office and from two miles away 8, 000 feet deep and these days, you know, 10 to 12, 000 feet laterally without able without the ability to

19:07 see what you're doing, you're relying on measurements, three-dimensional resistivity and nuclear measurements, all of these very exciting, you know, physics that goes on In finding, developing

19:21 and producing oil wells, it's just fascinating. I mean, just Jeremy, I'll put it in perspective. I just want to talk to Layman all the time. It's, hey, imagine being two miles away past the

19:32 pot shops that you have to go to, Jeremy, and you're going to drill a piece of pipe. You're going to push a piece of pipe and you need to hit the office you're sitting in, that small of a square,

19:46 10 by 10 square, and you're going to hit it now ninety nine percent of the time you're going to hit that exact spot it's it's a fascinating thing and I think that's what drew me to it was

19:57 in petroleum engineering you're working on things you can't see feel or touch but you have an understanding and eel unlike the civil engineering where you can actually go crush a piece of concrete

20:10 here which is it's equally fascinating but to me it was just it really stuck to me is that I'm working on things that I know I will never see that reservoir I will never actually see the reservoir but

20:22 I know a lot of things about it based on all of the things that we've measured over time this is fascinating it's funny Guys because I I tease the so of my peer

20:35 three or four buildings now and the department head of aerospace you know there are always considered you know the rocket scientists the graduates go to work for NASA and I and I Tease and I Say Look

20:45 We Guys We Got You Guys Beat Because I mean, you do fancy things, things that I certainly don't understand. But you do it at exactly zero PSI. What could be simpler? We do it at 20,

21:01 000. And at 400 degrees, maybe. So don't come to me and tell me that NASA is the high tech place. We do things far more difficult, far more interesting than what aeronautical engineers do No

21:17 question about it. And this is really fun for me. Tim and I, Dr. Spath, Tim and I have very different paths. Tim went to ANM. I grew up in the Northeast in New England. I sort of ended up in

21:28 oil and gas technology sales. But to tie it back, like Tim, you said, one of the things that really drew you in was the complexity, the data, the science, and just how cool the engineering and

21:39 the geology really is. And my view on it was a little bit different in that I was blown away by the technology. In the field and at the Wellhead versus what was in the back office in two thousand

21:52 and seven two thousand and eight when I got into oil and gas other industries were embracing cloud or braising sas you know and who is still very much on premise with older databases and legacy

22:02 platforms in the back office and then I look in the field and it's like Oh my God the stuff that they're doing with with real -time drilling in like doctor spout said you go mile and a half down you

22:13 go two miles to the left not in a straight line and you find that exact spot to get am I thought was it's always going to be some of the best technology in the world out in the field and eventually

22:24 the back office will catch up and now I'm starting to actually believe that we're in that phase where the back office will catch up and have that sort of same level of technology they do on the all

22:33 you have to do is look at the amount of money being spent when they're putting that drillbit in the ground too you can feel where the technology investment goes is the amount of money being spent

22:43 along that along that Path oh Yeah and the amount of the amount of Computing power required by some of these companies I mean it dwarfs or you know even the even the government in terms of computing

22:57 horsepower the the biggest user of high performance computing is is the only gas singer whether it's the gift that you know processing the geophysical data the seismic data or whether it's running a

23:09 set numerical simulation trying to model what's going to happen in the future of some of these oil and gas wealth when as we as we recorded last week mining for bitcoin using a stranded gas out in the

23:23 field Yeah so you know my message if any of the people listening to this one are an M students and they hadn't you know been a part of this podcast before if you if you're into data like this is the

23:37 best industry you could possibly be and just the amount of different data feeds the complexity of the data how it all flows entered apart mentally to optimize Automate the you know leverage artificial

23:50 intelligence with is is just absolutely incredible like it is so I love going into you know a well what is it well database or or drilling and phone look at like okay what were the recent IPS and then

24:04 what went into this drilling and I'm not even an engineer but I just find that so fascinating this data is all out there and everybody can evaluate what their peers are doing and still may be remain a

24:14 step behind or try to do something to stay ahead but it's all data -driven so that's a good segue I love the suit I'm going a switch to JaFfa said a doctor spock too many syllables that's that's fine

24:25 with me and and by the way

24:30 I go by Jeff in this building which is highly unusual in even a lot of the students will call me Jeff which I which I prefer as you drop handle better by an M term he just drop handles with you jeremy

24:44 as he started off saying you you never knew I was When you work with me at summer jay, why would it why what's the difference? You know, my friend Jimbo All right, we go on a first name case is

24:55 over there. So I don't know how unusual it is for you Now you're just now you're just name-dropping So I do want to so I want to go back to The little statement that Jeremy made about the data

25:07 science and it and I've sat through two of your kind of state of the department speeches What is the what is the department doing to address the changes in the industry whether that's ESG

25:24 You know, maybe even other

25:28 Alternative energies the transition data science What are the things you're doing to stay up with the industry because it's not just going back to the old, you know Studying McLaren series like we

25:38 did way back in the day or something like that Well, firstly, I'm impressed you remember your McLaren series. I don't Remember I just remember the two words McLaren and series waste we still don't

25:50 teach that there is nothing better than inverting matrices then oh no I'm going to get on that I'm getting sick of it anyway and that is that is a great question and I I would imagine it's something

26:01 on the minds of of all of the listener so we obviously you know when you think about it the customers of this department are the are the companies that recruit our students right and so just like in

26:20 in business we have to keep up with the needs of our customers and they've come since I've been here almost four years now they've they've come to campus they talked to us and say we we need people

26:32 that have more data analytic expertise because as you rightly mentioned and you know data has exploded because the number of sensors have exploded our understanding has exploded And not only is it the

26:47 data so voluminous, but it's in many disparate forms. And this, I think, is what part of Tim's company does is try to bring together everything from seismic waveforms to physical core, to output

27:04 from myriad applications to log data. I mean, it's just all over the map

27:11 So we put two courses together in our undergraduate curriculum. One is an elective, and you can take that at any point in your curriculum. The other one, which I think is a testament to how

27:27 important this subject has become, it's a required class now. You have to take a three-hour class in data analytics. And when we thought about how to do this, I wanted to make sure that data

27:38 analytics was taught in the department they can easily go across campus to the statistics. equipment and take data analytics but I want them to learn data analytics as applied to the oil and gas

27:51 business so they're learning data analytics around drilling around production around reservoir around completions and you know you you name it and so do we have to listen to our customers and that's

28:06 what they told us and so that's what we did and and that's a good example another example is that you mentioned Thomas E S G and as our as the oil and gas companies

28:21 broaden their portfolio we have to broaden the portfolio of skills of our graduates burger not going to get hired right so to that to that extent we are bringing in other courses we're developing a

28:37 geothermal classes or as we speak and we have a Hydrates Lab methane hydrates run right down the all we look at the Hydra we're looking at hydrogen storage obviously carbon sequestration is on

28:53 everyone's mind so Yeah We're we're slowly bringing these topics to the forefront because again our our our customers our recruiters are asking us to now we're not flipping a switch and saying no more

29:09 completion engineering no more hydraulic fracturing no more McLaren series You know We're We're

29:18 we're doing this slowly and I You Know My Strategy is to keep up with the industry as it as it moves towards this you know let's take Chevron for example so chevron just announced they're putting more

29:33 of their capital into Green energies Okay So now if chevron is going to hire our students they need to know a little bit about you They need to know a little bit about carbon sequestration. They need

29:44 to know a little bit about how hydrogen can augment the renewables, all of these things. On the other hand, Conoco Phillips is another great example of a company who just made two huge

29:57 unconventional acquisitions, one with Concho, so they bought the company. And then just a couple months ago, they bought, I think, for eight or nine billion shells assets in the Permian So

30:08 they're doubling down on shale and unconventional, which is a great thing. And

30:16 so Ryan Lance was here on campus a couple of weeks ago and said, Make sure you don't abandon traditional petroleum engineering because we're still recruiting traditional petroleum engineers. So it

30:28 has to be a blend of those two The way you do that is to offer minors, you offer certificates,

30:38 you offer electives. and then it's up to the store to pick and choose exactly what what their curriculum looks like at the end of the day

30:48 really cool so what are twenty other things that happened here recently I'm going to go ahead and plug J here J was a classmate of mine J Graham and he also came in with a vision that a lot of

31:03 petroleum engineers are the guys that are running oil companies you know in their future and they really don't have a good background nut you know out of the box in running an oil company or being in

31:17 the business and so he had this vision of a let's go partner up and morph the industry and give them an option to go learn a bit more about business you want to talk about that I think I think that's

31:28 a certificate program if I don't if I remember it is and I'm Glad You brought that up because it's called the Petroleum ventured that charring the J Ground Petroleum ventures a program wow that's

31:38 cleansed Jay and his wife Ora donating and getting that started

31:44 but it really does differentiate our graduates from other petroleum engineering graduates and and and it does that by combining

31:55 our number one ranked petroleum engineering program with the main school of business and when you're when you're a senior petroleum engineering student you can take for senior level finance courses

32:10 from the Mays school of business and so that's a certificate okay for four classes as twelve hours and I'll tell you what we we have yet to have somebody graduate with that combination who didn't who

32:24 not only didn't have a job they didn't none of them had less than two jobs from which to choose I mean because imagine how valuable that person is when they graduate engineering degree and oh, by the

32:39 way, I have 12 hours of senior level finance and economic courses.

32:45 So not only those who wish to go into, you know, want to be an entrepreneur right away, but those that go to work for companies, whether it's, you know, a small independent in the Permian to

33:02 Chevron, they all want people with an economics background, because that at the end of the day is, is, you know, what it boils down to. It's a

33:11 very successful program. Do you get

33:16 international as well as people from the North East, or is your concentration a lot of, you know, Texas and Oklahoma? Well, I have to divide that answer into two parts. The first part is

33:30 undergraduate, and there we have about 90 domestic US. citizens. Sure. but they come from all over the U S in fact we have a young lady here from Pennsylvania who I was using her because she

33:46 didn't she didn't want to go to penn state she drove halfway across the street from the college station you know and and then and then he had the graduate program has flipped so ninety percent of our

33:59 graduate enrollment are foreign nationals that makes sense to me and most

34:05 come sponsored from companies that we could all name an Aramco

34:12 C N O C Pertamina Petrobras Petronas all of the national Oil Companies send their best and brightest employees to A and M to get their masters and PHD degrees

34:28 fantastic that and I'm wondering too on the technology side since since that's where I sit a lot of these people will will come right out and be putting jobs where they'll be using software products

34:40 that have been around forever, call it an Aries or

34:47 IHS or SAP even in some cases. Well, view, do you guys, do you actually let people get their hands into some of the industry solutions when they're in school? And sort of what does that look like

34:59 to help build some of that experience and expertise around tech? Yeah, great question And the short answer is, absolutely. What, I have this, the same philosophy here that I had in industry,

35:13 which is, you know, if you have a bright engineering student or a bright engineer, you don't wanna dictate what it is they use to solve a problem. Now here at university, we have, I mean, I

35:27 have to sign annual license updates, you know, at least once a week because we have almost every company I providing their software and this is something that Sommerville started years ago when I

35:42 was running their software Division we thought it was a good idea to put eclipse and patrol and Morag him and you know if some of the O G C I products that that we inherited we put those in

35:55 engineering programs primarily because we wanted the students to get to fall in love with them and to get used to using them so that when they graduated they said hey how come you how come you're

36:08 using this simulator and naughty club sir how Come You're using kingdom for put Petro Physics instead of this product which I'm comfortable with from University so you can imagine the how much time

36:22 our students spend using software you know when when when Tim was here and certainly when I was here you know we had to write our own fortran code if we wanted to use software which was a royal pain

36:34 in the Ass and now we're bombarded with companies using the Summer J models and here take our software free of charge as many licenses as you want and they'll even come and provide training they'll

36:49 come and provide maintenance because they know the value of all of the Australians using their products especially if some of these kids are going to be running companies sitting on boards eventually

36:60 those relationships are going to pay off SIAP civilians so it's really a big part again we we don't focus on software in in teaching because you know we we don't want it we don't want to spend our

37:14 valuable time saying okay you hit this button and then this button in where we teach what goes on behind the scenes so that they can use any software the that helps them solve the problem what are the

37:27 what are the fundamentals what are the algorithms and of course back to data analytics him a weird We're utilizing software now that's heavy into machine learning because this is the the buzzword does

37:42 your you know

37:44 it's all it's all heading that way I've got so many topics were running at a time I wanted to hit a couple things for I want a couple of couple of softballs for you but enrollment in petroleum

37:57 engineering departments around the country took off in the two thousand thirty twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen and then kinda well we had look up a little bit of trouble and everything changed and

38:11 what I find interesting is the philosophy that Texas A and M specifically took was you know we're not going to let this thing grow crazy like we saw on the very I won't name them because that is not

38:24 what I want to get it be about here but where they we put a cap said hey we were going to graduate about this many and we're still at that level is That as basically Yeah so and now we're probably the

38:35 number one enrollment again that's sophie are several things you said are true the first is that we did limit and I was on the advice industry advisory board when we did this years ago we said we

38:48 would never get above six hundred undergraduate and at the time many

38:54 of the peer petroleum engineering departments around the country were growing you know add -in for an item they just opened the gates and and you know they were getting into the

39:07 you know the thousands of undergraduate students and of course there they weren't increasing their faculty at the same rate and so you know student faculty ratio went way up so what happens quality

39:21 goes way down and the customers once again decide not to recruit from those particular department so we we kept it at six hundred we are below that now We have declined, there's no doubt, but to a

39:39 much lesser extent than many other programs. We are, in fact, the last three semesters were more or less flat undergraduate. And I don't think there's another, there might be one other university

39:53 that can say that, but we're flat.

39:58 So that's undergraduate. Again, in graduate, of course, everyone, not just petroleum engineering, but engineering in general, enrollment is down across the board in graduate school. And we all

40:09 know why, because they can't either get a visa or they can't physically get on a plane and get here the last 18 months. So this is why universities are struggling right now. But back to petroleum

40:21 engineering, we're at a good, where we are vis-a-vis, our faculty count, we're in

40:27 a good spot right now If

40:31 I had 200 more. I stood outside the comments say they want to start I probably wouldn't let them all in because we you know we focus on quality quality over quantity and I think that's paid off when

40:44 you look around the industry at some of the success that our graduates have had okay said alright another topic that I did want to hit you came in year four in year four of your tenure or something

40:59 like that

41:02 and coven hits you in in you know halfway halfway and now at two years ago what's it like running a department a minute if I remember right it was march he said okay all the students go home what Hell

41:18 must that have been like for your team to to to navigate that Yeah that's that's a pretty good word to use and I'll tell you I'll tell you exactly how it affected faculty IT exactly doubled their

41:36 workload was because you had students here physically which we were obliged to teach physically after they came back of course and then we could not make them come to class but they were registered

41:54 and they've paid their tuition so we had to accommodate them virtually and so imagine you're a professor you have to teach the teach twice so it it exactly doubled and from my standpoint as a

42:07 department head oh I can't count how many zoom meetings I had with upper administration talking about you know sanitizing an hour in a lockdown of the building and and how we are just going through

42:22 the the motions you know the day in and day out operations of running buildings and and making sure we don't exceed our lab capacity maintaining our six foot social distancing. I mean, there's just

42:37 incredible amount of minutia that we had to go through in order to keep the students safe and healthy. And

42:45 to a certain extent, that still goes on. Although we are operating, I wanna make sure I get this point in, we are operating in a 100 post-pandemic world. Okay, so I have, for example, I have a

43:03 research meeting day after tomorrow and I'm inviting a lot of industry people here to come listen to our students present their research. And a lot of the people are saying, Will it, can I attend

43:14 virtually? And I say, No.

43:17 Because the pandemic is behind us here at Texas AM. We are 100 in class. And we are 100 face-to-face when it comes to meetings. Jeremy, you think they can pull that off in Colorado?

43:35 i Dunno I Dunno I'm never on campuses tim you tell your dog to shut the fuck up Yeah sorry about that I just wanted to swear in front of an edge I was going to say I think he just dropped that have

43:49 the abilities you've got now we can do that yeah now that was for you now I can only imagine the the hell that that that would be and I'm I'M Glad from the extra student experience in -person is is so

44:05 incredibly valuable and I I've talked about this with colin McLoughlin a bunch that what it irritated me early on when he was like you don't need an education education is not important I'm like for

44:15 you write like you're a born entrepreneur you can go that route and that works for Me I don't remember a lot of the things I learned in college as a history major but it's socialized me and put me in

44:27 a position where I could be around high achievers and people who were destined for for greatness and see what how they put in the work and how they did it and I think I get the sense A and M has that

44:38 sort of competitive atmosphere when you know I mean we all know how significant the social component is particularly at the university level you know you don't have your student associations you don't

44:53 have your intramural sports you don't have the Dixie chicken across the street that I know tim is very

45:02 to lay there to Jeremy Gomer trying to go next year so Yeah this this was a huge component and but but all of the social aspects aside what we're seeing and this isn't unique to this department is not

45:17 unique to this university what we are seeing is a reduction in particularly on the math side of the students that are I mean, can you imagine trying to learn differential equations virtually on Zoom

45:35 with your dog running around and your little brother and, you know, wanting to play and I mean, we're seeing a reduction. I mean, it's not, it's not huge, but you know, we're having to play

45:47 tutor. A lot of times to some of the, the sophomores that come into our lectures that are supposed to be fluent in differential equations and In differential equations and physics 212 and you name

46:02 it and they're not. So this is just the byproduct of the virtual education they've had. Jeff, I took differential equations and I walked out of the final. Looked at the guy I was walking with and

46:16 said, look, I don't know what the hell we just learned. Yeah. I got to end the course and have no idea. And I just jettisoned everything. So you're again, you're making me sick to my stomach

46:25 discussing those things. What I do want to go on a more personal side with you in particular you spent thirty two years of slumber J one of those years was President of the SPE you know International

46:39 mean that's Crazy Big and I know it's a lot a lot of things going on what's it like because not a lot of the department heads have a full career in industry and then come back into Academia what's

46:55 that what does that transition for you been like and you've also got the SPE part in there I dunno if that's helpful or not and well I can I use your word it was hell there you go no it was I mean you

47:10 know I I took this role because

47:14 I wanted to give back to my University My Alma Mater I wanted to work with students and advise them and that part of my Job I absolutely love the problem has that's a very small part of my Job I spend

47:28 a lot of my time dealing with the administration, the red tape, the bureaucracy, whatever you want to call it. And I thought, Tim, that I understood politics and bureaucracy coming from the

47:40 company this high as a slumberjake. But it pales in comparison to a large - I'll probably get in trouble for saying this - but at a huge state-run university, there's just a ton of administrative

47:58 headaches. And so that I'm still getting used to. And as an executive in slumberjake, I would walk up to employees and say, I want this done this way now. On my desk tomorrow at 8 am, maybe 730,

48:13 so I have time to look at it first, and it'd be there. And especially in slumberjake, they'd click their heels together and

48:20 salute and say, yes, sir And here, I try to do that and, you know, a whole tenured professor will say, Yeah, if I can get around to it, I'll, you know. I still have summer day philosophy

48:35 anytime, anywhere, right? That's right. In summer days, like the military, you say no once, and then it's yes, sir. That's how high. But anyway, that's just one example, and I'm blowing it

48:49 up a little bit, but it was a huge shift in mentality. It really was. And I think I've managed it. Okay. I got some great advice from my one of the preceding department heads, Dr. Holditch,

49:08 who I know you, you knew very well. He told me to make two lists. One of the list of the things I like to do in my job and a list of the things that I don't like to do in my job and delegate the

49:21 latter one and focus on the on the first one so that's When I tried to do while so long as you can't delegate everything Yeah We're we're coming up on the end of this year but you had a very full

49:32 career was slumber J again anytime anywhere see all over the place and M S P E n tempted asked the most exotic place where in your travels what is the most remote weirdest place that you've been as

49:50 part of the industry not just go on trekking across mongolia for fun but well where is the industry taking you the industry again just one example because I could we could spend another hour talked

50:00 about that but one example and it was when I was spe President you know one of the few perks of being spe presidents a lot of work is that you get to choose where the the board of directors meets or

50:15 go and so

50:19 I picked a place that was just coming out of a thirty year at nightmare actually a BMR and Me and Mar was starting to open up to the west the President Obama that time had just visited on Song chew

50:36 and they're trying to get a fledgling democracy going and and they've have huge oil and gas reserves so I told SB E -board and and of course when you become president all the staff you know they they

50:50 as soon as I can they say oh where are you going to pick your meetings you know let's go to Florida or let's go to enabling Bali you know and I said we're gone to young Goon Myanmar and they they all

51:02 at where where Yeah and they dragged him there and they hated me for it and most of the spouses didn't come like they normally do the towers were somewhere and there were there were no there was no

51:15 banking you had to pay with your hotel room with cash and I mean alliance stacks of cash while brigade would have backpack Yeah so actually talk about going back in time and so just to finish that

51:29 story to reward them after taking them to Yangon Myanmar I took them to a cart the Hanen Columbia Donna and Laid on the beach you know so there you go I've been a lot of crazy places or somewhere you

51:46 know the security was Nonexistent Richards it makes for a couple of good stories but maybe next time Yeah we'll have to give have to get another one in there way Jeff I really appreciate you guys you

51:58 coming on is not easy to carve out what fifty two minutes to to sit and talk to a couple of yokels like Us but really I enjoyed it and I want to I want to go back to the very very first thing you said

52:12 until just a very quick funny story youth you said in the very beginning when you were just bantering amongst yourselves that today you have a real doctor well that depends on what you mean by

52:26 i was I was flying somewhere it was transatlantic I don't remember where and the flight attendant came up very discreetly a passenger by passenger and said excuse me Sir Are you a Doctor Excuse Me Sir

52:40 Are you a Doctor where you know why she's doing it right so she got to me and she said excuse me Sir are you a doctor and I said why Yes I AM and she said well we've got a guy in you know thirty four

52:50 J that's having heart palpitations up what do you think we should do I said I don't know I said I'm a PHD in petroleum engineering I said if you if you have a laplace transform you need solve can help

53:03 you but I don't have the heart heart conditions you should have said drill baby drill drill baby drill Hey Thanks Guys I enjoyed a lot of fun