What The Funk?

0:00 We're back on what the funk, this is the second podcast I'm recording on my birthday. It's my birthday. I'll podcast if I want to. I guess that's the motto for the day, but truly I really did

0:11 intentionally schedule this and the one before this to happen on my birthday because I like podcasting and it actually gives me a chance to talk to people, to listen, to break away from the typical

0:23 monotony of the nine to five, whatever you want to call it. So I've been looking forward to this one I did push you off, Courtney, the last time. Thank you for being flexible, but honored that

0:33 this is your first podcast that you're coming on and doing. That's, I'm surprised, but I'm also excited. Oh, thank you, man. And happy birthday. Thank you. Thank you. And apparently we are

0:43 the same age. We don't need to reveal what that age is, but we are the same age. People can figure that out pretty fast, but

0:50 pretty cool. So I've got a fellow. Jen X or Yeah absolutely. I like being a millennial. Like on the, we're on the cusp. I, I try and convince people that I'm older than I am because I, for my

1:05 birthday every year, I like to do discounts for QED clients. And if it's not a round number, it doesn't sound good, you know? Yeah. So for like three years, I offered 40 off for

1:16 my 40th birthday. Putting on my team was like, you're not there yet,

1:19 you know? That's funny. Yeah, I like to do a round number to celebrate that. Love it. Well, Courtney Stevens is the voice that you hear on the other line, she is the CEO, founder,

1:32 President extraordinaire at QED and Associates. QED actually hit my radar a long time ago through Tim Loser, rest in peace. Tim was always a big fan of QED. This goes back to the energy navigator

1:47 days and I'll let you kind of get into what QED is and does a little bit later into the podcast Courtney, I want to know, who are you? Who is Courtney Stevens? Well, I've listened to your

1:60 podcasts and I've heard this question before. So I made us like a 30 second summary about my identity. I'm a mother, I'm an only child. I'm the mother of an only child. I'm the mother of an only

2:12 grandchild. I have a small and very tight knit family. And that's probably the main core of my identity. I'm a dog mom, I've got three lovely rescue pups at my house, and one cat from the

2:28 international cat distribution system. I'm a mathematician, I'm a straight shooter, I'm a horrible salesperson. I'm a traveler, I'm an extrovert, my parents would say, I've never met a stranger.

2:41 I'm a wife, I'm a daughter-in-law, I'm a CEO and founder of QED, but I'm also a working reservoir engineering technician. I am 247 tech support for the QEDers at large and I'm a friend and I'm

2:56 your biggest fan. Yeah, that's awesome. There's just way too much for me to try to dig into there. I'm not even sure where to start, but I do wanna start with, you know, even certainly before

3:07 you had grandchildren, children, children, but when you were a child yourself, did you grow up in Texas? Did you go to school in Texas and then take me a little bit through your kind of career

3:18 path? Sure, so I was born in Marshall, Texas. I saw I'm an East Texas girl right out of the Arkletex I graduated from Marshall High School, and I got a full scholarship to go to Centenary College

3:31 of Louisiana, where I majored in math. I loved every minute of it. Centenary requires every person at Centenary to do an intercultural exchange. I did mine at Oxford University, St. John's

3:43 College, and that's where I met my husband. Nice. He's British. You marry a Texan, you move to Texas.

3:51 And we went to Tulane We both got fellowships to do PhDs. mine in theoretical mathematics. And I just didn't like the, I didn't like anything about it, Jeremy. My heart wasn't in it. I really

4:06 gave it a shot, but I just, I wasn't meant to be a PhD in math or a college professor. I got an offer to go to work for another one, school and associates, and I took it same day. Ah, nice.

4:17 Yeah, and so we, I don't know, we kind of packed up and moved to Houston in a weekend. Our wedding, I think I interviewed on a Tuesday. Our wedding was on a Saturday I went on our, we went on

4:28 like a four night honeymoon. And then I, I showed up at work on Monday morning. And I mean, it was, my husband didn't actually have work status in the US. at the time. So for the first couple

4:40 of years, while we were processing that, it was a single income household. He stayed at home and took care of our Chihuahua money penny who's also a rescue dog. And I worked at Netherland School

4:50 and Associates. I learned so much there, what a great training program they have.

4:59 for people that are gonna do reserve reports. But I think I messed up a ton on soft skills and how to be a professional. I had never had relationships with people other than professors. And so I

5:12 really messed up just every single day. So I don't know if they liked me very much.

5:18 I think they did. So what do you mean? Like you feel like you were a hammer, so everything just looks like a nail or you weren't a great listener. Like I want to dive into this a little bit.

5:28 'Cause I haven't experienced that with you. I actually find you to be like very warm and welcoming and accommodating. Maybe those are skills that you've honed in on over time. But like talk to me a

5:38 little about what you think you lacked at that time. Yeah. Well, I don't think I was a team player. I think I

5:48 didn't understand that,

5:53 I think I didn't understand. dynamics and interactions within a professional office. And that was due to lack of experience, kind of going down this track where I was going to go to grad school.

6:02 All of my summers as an undergrad were spent doing research projects. I'd never been in an office. My jobs throughout high school and college were like tutoring or kind of academic focus. I just

6:14 didn't know how to be a professional. I encourage young professionals to get those early professional experiences, QED offers a one week externship for high school and college students every summer.

6:27 And it's just a chance to kind of get some small exposure to the corporate environment and expectations so that you're not shocked when you get there. I guess, you know, I gave you an example of

6:39 something that was just silly that I did early on. Probably my first couple of months at Nithil and Sewell, three or four bankers boxes hit my desk And I was told to go see it in the kitchen and

6:51 make copies of these, you know. three boxes worth of files. And I thought, oh my gosh, I stood at the copy machine for probably 48 hours, just taking papers out, taking the staples out,

7:02 putting them in the copy machines, they wouldn't make a new file folder, filing it all. And I thought, I am a theoretical mathematician. What are you seeing in here making these copies? And

7:13 that's just such the wrong attitude to have. And they must have felt that, you know, years later, probably one of my most critical, when I left Netherlands School, I went to Watcherson Company.

7:24 And I thought, I'm just going to do it different. Watcherson Company, a boutique investment bank, have very high standards of professionalism. And I knew, when I was interacting with the people

7:34 at Netherlands School, that I had not exceeded their expectations in terms of being a team player, being willing to do whatever it takes. I knew I hadn't hit it out of the park. And I thought,

7:46 when I go to Watchers, I'm going to hit it out of the park. I'm going to be friendly with everybody I'm going to be accommodating. I'm going to be respectful. When I went into the interview, the

7:57 receptionist was putting together stuff for a conference they were hosting. She was actually wrapping presents and I saw her in the conference room with wrapping paper and tape and overwhelmed with

8:07 the number of boxes she had to wrap. And so I walked in there and I said, Hey, can I help you out with that? She handed me the wrapping paper and the scissors and the tape and she walked out And

8:19 so I just, Man, I got to work. I started wrapping presents. And sooner or later, the guys that had come down from Calvary to interview me came in and where's the lady that we're supposed to end?

8:29 He's in there wrapping presents. Don Cordier was my supervisor there and if you know him, he was just a fabulous businessman. When he retired at his retirement party, he said, You know why we

8:41 gave you that job? And I was like, Because of my research and semi-transitive graphic

8:47 And he was like, No, it's because you were in there wrapping presents. We knew you would do whatever it takes.

8:54 Yeah. Those are the types of things, you know, that I learned. Those are the mistakes I made. And then I, thank goodness, had the opportunity to kind of reinvent myself and try and be an

9:07 exceptional professional going forward after that experience. Well, thank you for sharing that. I think that reflection is important. And it actually makes some sense because it does seem like you

9:18 like to mentor coach, hire, train, develop younger professionals, which is something I've kind of always appreciated about what you do. And something that I want to do more of, I feel like as I

9:31 get deeper into my career, because if I think back to my path, like I'm a country kid myself. Yeah, granted, I'm from New England, but there's plenty of country out there too. I was from the

9:41 middle of nowhere and very blue collar. And my parents were teachers. I didn't have any exposure to the business world, like until. my first few interviews, I guess, when I was 22, 23 years old,

9:59 you kind of have to learn how to be a professional. And I really would have benefited from just almost some like high level professional coaching. Like my friends who went to law school or business

10:09 school, they paid and they got professional training. And at the time that they came out and had jobs, they kind of wore professionals. They had paralegal jobs, they had internships, or they

10:19 worked at somebody's business and they understood how to do it Me, I'd waited tables, I bartended. You know, I kind of worked some odd jobs. Those are good skills. Really good skills and it

10:30 helps with sales, I think too, because you, especially just the math of like, okay, well, if I make 20 tips and I do1, 800 in sales, I make360 and then I tip out 3, right? So you get quick

10:41 with good math, but you also kind of start to think about like, okay, people skills, right? And how do I talk to people? Yeah, my best hire is bartenders and servers.

10:54 And especially like for me, I was like, I was done, I sort of had that mindset. You did a little bit too, like I went to Brandeis. Brandeis is a really good school. It was, it was hard. I

11:04 finished in four years, like I'm accomplished. And here I am waiting tables and bartending and taking out the trash and cleaning up people's puke at the bar and all these sorts of things. I'm like,

11:14 I shouldn't be doing this. So it was not the right mindset to have, but it benefited my early employers because I was like, if you hire me to do this job, like I'm dying to have a boring office

11:28 job and I will work extra hours. And my first job at left hand networks and Boulder. So many of the senior executives will come up to me and they're like, dude, we hear that you're the, you're

11:39 the hammer. I'm like, what do you mean? They're like, you're always on the phone. Like you're always working. I'm like, well, that's, that's the job though, right? I come in at seven and I

11:52 leave it. I take a 30 minute lunch and I make 85 phone calls a day and I set up like two meetings. That's what you told me to do and they're like, yeah, but like, that's not what people really do.

12:08 Oh, so you actually, you know, you met the expectations. I would say that's rare. I mean, you know, so for a living, what I do, I mean, my main line of business is going out recruiting young

12:21 people that either just graduated from college or for whatever reason didn't go to college, but are looking for a start, you know, as a professional. And I would say teaching people to show up is

12:33 actually pretty hard, you know. I train a lot of people and if somebody comes in with that desire, like, I want to work, I want the job. They're always successful I only have about a 50 success

12:47 rate and I put, I spend my own money to train these people in my training room, and I - about 12 people in there each quarter. And historically, I have only ever had 50 make. So only half make it

13:01 to the end of our training program and can be successfully placed. And the truncation, man, a lot of it is not showing up. You know, maybe it's because I learned early on at QED that I couldn't

13:14 make exceptional professionals unless they had the drive and the wheelers to do it. But if somebody came in with your attitude, that is my dream. Somebody comes in willing to work, wanting to have

13:26 a successful career. Man, that's easy for me to work with. Yeah. As that sharing for you thank,

13:32 my good friend and sales trainer, Justin Boochi, has said numerous times, if you have the will, I'll teach you the skill, but the will is not something that I can teach you, you have to have

13:44 that. So I always think about that with my own hires too, and even on the recruiting that we do for other companies. That's the first thing you look for. And you see it a little bit more, I think,

13:54 later on in people's careers, but when you're younger and the world is truly your oyster, like you kind of have this vision of what a magical, perfect career path is gonna be. I think you and I

14:03 both know that's just not realistic. Yeah, well, and it's not that somebody that messes it up can't turn it around. I mean, I messed it up, I feel like. I mean, if you called these guys at

14:13 Neville and Sule, I think they'd say I was very accurate. I think they would say, you know, I did good work on the reserve reports, but what they wouldn't say is that I was their favorite person

14:24 that ever worked for them. And so, yeah, I think I'm glad I get to mess it up when the stakes weren't too high. And for the QED years that train your men, they mess it up all the time. And I'm

14:36 so glad for them to mess it up here with me when they're in training, so that it doesn't have a long-term impact on their career once we get them out in the place of history. Yeah, make your

14:47 mistakes with me now so that when we put you in industry, you're good. So take me a little bit more through the evolution. You were sort of like, you were a pretty young entrepreneur. Like, how

14:58 old were you and you decided to launch QED? And what was your impetus for doing it? 30, yeah, 30. 30, 30, yeah.

15:07 I mean, I worked at, you know, I told you, I started at Netherlands School, I worked at Watcherson Company and just loved it, loved it best years of my life, I learned about every basin, got

15:17 to work with all kinds of wonderful people, such a great experience. The only reason I left Jeremy was, I was ready to slow down and have a baby. And I really, that was a part of my life that I

15:28 wanted. And so I made one call to my favorite client, Marathon Oil Company, Doubles Brooks. And he had an offer on my desk same day. Nice. To go over and work at Marathon. And that was a great

15:41 place, you know, to go through the whole process of, you know, trying to have a baby and having a baby. I thought when Nathan was born, and Nathan was born about two months early, it was, you

15:54 know, it was in the NICU for a while, and I thought, well, I'm gonna be a stay-at-home mom. You know, my mom was a stay-at-home mom, and my husband's a chemical engineer, and I can be a

16:03 stay-at-home mom. We saved up a lot of money before we were ready to have him, and I just thought, I just thought I'll stay home, and I'll raise him And after 16 months, I was going nuts. I was

16:17 a crazy stay-at-home mom. And I came to this realization that maybe I would be a better mother if I was not at home all the time. So I called Andy Torrance - I called everybody I knew because this

16:30 was 2008. And you might remember 2008. It wasn't a good time. It started off good. Certainly didn't finish up good. I'll tell you that. That's right So I had called around and asked everybody I

16:41 knew if they needed some contract whereas if we're engineering technician health. the only person that everybody said no and then Andy Torrance called me back and said, You can come over here to

16:51 Lantana. You can help us sort out some data analysis. David, Nini, and I are going to be doing some big things. And Andy taught me, I went in and worked for him kind of two or three days a week,

17:02 which was perfect. It meant I could get out of the house and I could get back into the technical world. He taught me HPDI at the time, which ultimately became a drilling impact. He taught me, I

17:15 was kind of an eerie person before that. He taught me PhD win, which I love. He gave me some really good theory behind reservoir engineering that as a tech, I didn't have exposure to. And he

17:29 encouraged me to go ahead and get it started. I said, you know, people recruiters, before I had Nathan, recruiters would like call and say, we got this opportunity, it's in such and such, and

17:43 it was just such huge money Jeremy. It was such huge money for reservoir engineering techs. And I thought, if I could make a duplicate copy of myself, this would be like a license to print money.

17:53 And I had talked about to other people about, what if I made a firm where I went and I found really smart people that were good at basic math and logic? And I just trained them to do what I do.

18:05 Everybody that I knew said, no, that's a horrible idea. Or, except for Andy Torrance And he was like, I think you should do it. And I

18:19 just did it, man. I don't think that I did it because I thought it would be successful. And

18:27 I just knew that I could, so I did. And it's been

18:34 the greatest ride of my life. It's been crazy. I've gotten to help kind of 200 or so people start their lives and start successful careers in oil and gas. I'm still a working reservoir engineering

18:47 technician. So I still get to do consulting projects and work for all kinds of firms. So I get to meet great people like you. I mean, I just, I love the industry and I love what I do. And

19:01 because of the type of work that you have, it allows you to be really well connected. You're sort of always keeping on top of trends. You're working with various different operators, different

19:11 software companies Tell me a little bit more about the types of people that you invite in to do the training. Are these people who went to traditional oil and gas schools with reservoir engineering

19:23 degrees? Is that a requirement? Or is it just somebody who you think could do the job? Like how do you, and how do you source those people as well? Sure, well, our best candidate is somebody

19:36 that is graduated from college, but is sleeping on your parents couch and doesn't have a plan in life Our best candidate is directionless. Our best candidate is somebody that got a degree in history

19:48 or urban planning or sociology or anthropology or something that they loved and they had a passion about, but they don't have that career. I can give them the direction. And so they're usually

20:01 those types of people that are like, man, I just haven't found my calling in life. That's the thing, Jeremy. So that's who we're always looking for. People with technical backgrounds tend -

20:12 sometimes they do OK at QED, sometimes they don't. If somebody has a very clear idea of what they want to do with their life, for example, I want to be a reservoir engineer. It's rare that I can

20:22 help those people through the QED process. I'm not saying I haven't done it because I have taken people out of petroleum engineering programs at the big universities. It really takes a special

20:34 person like that to be willing to learn my job, which is assistant to the reservoir engineer right. And so if I find that person, yes. I mean. Franklin Stag came through in 2016, first QED or

20:47 ever to start as a technician and ultimately achieved professional engineering credentials. But we've done a number of tech to engineer kind of people. It's just not the standard. The standard is

20:59 I'm going through the grocery store at HEB.

21:03 I'm getting five different kinds of cheese because I'm kind of bougie. And the check goes, this one, I don't think this tag is right I think that this one is a different price per, and I just see

21:14 it in the guy's eyes. I just see that he has great customer service, he has great attention to detail. He has a great communicator, and I go, here's my card, call me Monday. And now Jacob Dale,

21:31 he works at Paloma Natural Resources, and he just had a baby, Daphne, he's got married,

21:38 and he has a wonderful life, and I found him at HEB.

21:43 That's the dream like I always wanted that to happen to me at when I was bartending or waiting tables Like oh, yeah, not only is this guy gonna give me like a hundred percent tip on this He's gonna

21:55 like leave his number on the back and say hey, I've got a job for you starting on Monday It never happened, but I did see it happen for other people and it just came down to like that being

22:06 authentic and personable and and Showing your true intelligence and spirit shine through oh Man, I we we have so many stories like that Joe Holson who's a contract Reservoir engineer. I mean he is I

22:22 don't actually know what Joe's doing right this moment Joe's kind of a hot commodity. He might not be a contract reservoir engineer right now He is a great reservoir engineer and he is it has a great

22:31 eye for talent. So at nape He is a super driver the uber driver went to University of Houston got a degree in economics but didn't know what he wanted to do and And then Joe calls me the next day.

22:44 He's like, man, he was really good. I was like, Joe, that's the guy. I need that guy. He reported his phone being lost. When his phone was actually not lost, he gets in touch with the kid.

22:55 The kid comes over, we have an eighth grade math test, Jeremy. For me, if you can pass my eighth grade math test with a high degree of accuracy, you've got the detail, you've got the basic math

23:05 skills I need to get it done. Put him in the class, finished in March, got a temp to perm assignment at court energy. Now he's a full employee of court energy, his name's Tim Williams, and he's

23:18 living the dream, you know, and that's what I do every day. Well, courts, courts doing extremely well. I mean, they've done a lot of consolidation. They're one of the larger players in the

23:27 pocket, so that's a good place to be. So walk me through them the process a little bit. So you get people into your program and you effectively get them trained up to be reservoir engineering techs,

23:39 And then you. Then what happens? You have contacts at different operators and software companies where you actually place these people? Like, what does that process then look like once they're

23:48 trained up? Sure. So once they finish training, they go through a lot of testing. So they take a test every two or three days while they're here training. Oh wow. It's kind of a final, yeah,

23:58 they gotta make a 90 or higher to stay in. That might be why I have a 50 truncation. Too many tests. But this job is, this job is, you gotta have that high degree of accuracy to be okay in this

24:10 job And so there's a final presentation. You're welcome to come and watch the next round's final presentations where they give a base and study a company overview and then they showcase some of their

24:20 reserves and economics work in various software platforms. And then we put them on our consulting team. We do on-demand consulting, so people call us all the time and say, Hey, I need a couple of

24:31 runs at this price deck, orI need a database converted. And we do that as needed. They get that experience working under the wings of the pros at QED. they get the real world experience while

24:42 they're working on our consulting team. But ultimately we want every single one of them to get placed in industry. And so our clients, we have a sales team that goes out and works with our clients

24:52 to make sure that we get the right fit for the right person when a place is open. We're only doing these straight out of QED people. So I'm not a head hunter. If you said, hey, I need a super

25:04 check. It was 15 years of experience. You know, that's not what I'm selling What I do is somebody that has a great attitude, a great understanding of reserves and economics, you know, that

25:15 they're hungry, they're going to show up, you're going to say jump, they're going to say how high, up major of it. And we offer non-stop additional technical support, career guidance and

25:25 mentorship for forever after their place. So, you know, we're constantly in touch with the QEDers at large, either saying, This is how we're gonna, this is the best way to model, you know. the

25:39 interpolated ratios by these lateral links and areas. Or, yeah, that's a great job offer, but you should consider all these other things currently. I mean, we're providing kind of,

25:52 I mean, just exactly what I would have wanted when I was their age. So a little bit of career guidance, a little bit of mentorship, a lot of technical support, is ultimately the real goal is that

26:02 they all keep their jobs and they're successful. If they lose their job, they're welcome to come back to QED at any time. And so, you know, I need to keep them doing their best. That's, it's a

26:15 really cool model and it's creative, a little bit outside the box, I think, right? But then you know, like you become the authority within reason on, all right, who do I need? What's the

26:28 cultural fit? And then what is the technical fit? And then you can plug those holes. Like I like that, it's basically you're sort of like taking the role of like an eagle, right?

26:39 right? And you've got these birds, right? And you want to grow these birds and you want to tell them to go here to go there. And then the benefit I would think for you is, well, they're not

26:48 going to stay engineer, not all of them are going to stay engineering text their whole career. Some of these people are going to have the career trajectory where they become a VP of engineering or

26:57 something like that. And then they're coming to you saying, who do I hire? Because I'm a graduate of that program. It's kind of cool Well, I would hope so. I mean, actually, though, we did

27:06 have somebody last year make a917, 000 bonus.

27:10 And his title is still Reservoir Engineering Technician. So I would say, yes, some of them go on to get, you know, various titles or whatever. And I don't mean to say or whatever. Some have

27:22 really launched outstanding careers. I just saw John Chaplin posted that he's going to be at that climate conference in Dubai next week speaking. He's a QED or that cop. Yeah, exactly. And so,

27:33 you know, lots of people have have gone on to become incredible things. incredible titles. Those of us that have stayed with the title of Reservoir Engineering Tech,

27:45 I mean our highest ever, our highest ever earning QED is his title still Reservoir Engineering Technician. I would like a917, 000 bonus next year as well. That would be sweet. I think a lot of

27:58 people would. It made my whole life worthwhile. Absolutely. I just got that call. I was like, he said he was so shaken. He didn't know if he had to go back to the office. But he was like, I

28:13 don't think I can work today. And I was like, I understand that. I said, do you think I should pay off my Jeep and maybe my student line? So I was like, yes. He'll still have some leftover.

28:24 I'm guessing. Yeah. Yeah. Unless your Jeep is the custom one off

28:32 I love to hear that. It makes me happy. And of course you take. I mean, it's the same thing like when my sales guys, you know, close a deal and they get a commission bonus, I say, hey, your

28:43 check's going to look a little bit different. And then they're like, nice. Nice. Nice. Yeah. Especially when they're younger, right? Because I remember what it was like the first few times I

28:53 got, I got commission checks. That was so sweet. I wish, I wish I had your neck for that. You know, I'm really, I really am a horrible sales person. I don't think so But you're, I mean,

29:05 you're a legend and you've trained some legends. I tend to, I tend to give it all away, man. My salespeople, they don't want me in any meetings because I'm like, yeah, we'll do that for free.

29:16 And then they give me the eyes, like stop this. You're like, no, no, now you're affecting my commission. I do. That's right. Well, I mean, I think it's important that you, that you know

29:26 what your strengths and weaknesses are. I think self-awareness is a strength of yours And, you know, I'm, I think it's fascinating. business that you've created. Do you have like a competitor?

29:38 Anybody else do what you do? I mean, success breeds competition. So I would think people would make it go at it. I don't think anybody does it the way that I do it. There's certainly great

29:49 contract reservoir engineering techs out there. There's, you know, I offer kind of Aries and PhD win. I offer some great soft skill training, some great theory of reserves and economics training

30:02 There's other trainers out there, you know. So there's, I don't think anybody kind of does it exactly like I do.

30:10 But, you know, surely maybe one day somebody will try. Well, it's been like almost 15 years or something. So maybe not. I think it's because it requires pretty thick skin and running your own

30:24 business as I've learned over the last three years has many ups and downs. And I think you start to become hardened to the both ways. like the down still suck and the ups are still nice. They just

30:38 don't last quite as long that your dopamine tends to stay a little bit more in check versus early on. It's like, oh my God, I can't believe this. And then, oh no, I just lost this client. But

30:48 now you're like, well, that's just going to happen. And it's still going to suck, but you see it. And there's a longer path there for you. Yeah, I think

30:60 in 2018, I had a couple of reservoir engineer, a couple of petroleum engineering grads in the class that are now reservoir engineers. And one of them said, you know, how do you feel the oil and

31:11 gas industry is going to be in five to 10 years? And I said, well, I think it's going to be great. You know, I think I just, 'cause we had just been through a downturn. If you think about it,

31:21 2018, we had just been through the 2014, 2015 shenanigans. There are 2016 sucked. I sold all of our hourly consulting services in 2016 for the price of a barrel of oil. Wow. And can you imagine,

31:36 yeah, my salespeople were mad that oil got down to like 26, we were upside down on all the consulting we were doing. And it was a hard time. So in 2018, when he asks this question, I say, no,

31:51 I think it's gonna be great. You know, I think it's gonna be a great, strong commodity price environment. Here we go, you know? I think I underestimated how much outside factors, meaning things

32:03 outside of our industry could impact things within our industry.

32:08 There are gonna be ups

32:11 and downs. Perseverance is required to get through the ups and the downs of the oil and gas industry. Which leads me to a logical question, which is around the COVID times, right? I'm assuming

32:25 that most of your kind of training sessions and classes are in person. They are, yeah. So did you have to pivot really quickly and then deal with this negative low price environment? How did you

32:37 survive 2020? It was rough and I would say 2022 actually ended up financially being the worst year for us on the record.

32:47 So I had always hedged QED as follows. I thought if commodity prices are strong, we'll train people and we'll place them. And so I don't charge people a fee when they're training with me, I charge

32:59 the hiring companies a fee to hire them Totally. So when prices are strong, people are gonna get hired. And I thought when prices are low, headcounts are gonna be constrained and people will come

33:12 to us and pay a premium just to get done what they have to get done. Yeah, they knew your hedges you're consulting to the full-time people, yeah. So we swung pretty heavy to consulting for 2020,

33:25 2021. And I mean, we pulled it out, Jeremy, but it was difficult because. the hours that we worked through that time seem insane. I think I went about six weeks without even saying goodnight to

33:36 my son because I was so chained to my desk. But we did it and we did it because we wanted to protect the QED years that were under our wings. Everybody did it. The level fives, the level nines,

33:49 everybody just worked really hard on hard consulting projects. There was a super major came in and asked for 312 database conversions. Wow And we just said, yes, you know, we just did it. And I

34:05 was glad to have the business. The problem was the transition back. So for us to swing from training and placing to consulting is no big deal, right? We just take everybody we've got, but we do

34:17 promotions on consulting, you know, up the sales effort on consulting and we just consult, consult, consult. The problem was swinging back to in-person training and placements, because our

34:29 recruiters. weren't able to go out and do what they need to do to get people in. Where do we find the HEB checker? You know, if you're not going in and meeting people, we're not getting kind of

34:42 that natural progression into our training room. So I'll tell you what I did, man. I got an eye for talent. And I saw my son's speech and debate coach

34:52 in the house. He was phenomenal. I was like, this lady needs to work for me

34:60 She, without me interacting, without me interfering 'cause I want Tom Ball ISD to be mad at me. Without interfering, she resigned her teaching position and said she just wanted to try something

35:12 new. And I said, well, why don't you try this? And I'll tell you what, she has filled that training room. Wow. Quality candidates every quarter since she's been here. And I mean, we've now

35:21 got a wait list for people to get into the training room. So I'm very happy

35:28 with her performance performance and she actually that she has a dream to be like you Jeremy, she has a dream to move into technical sales. And so we're gonna expand her into that in 2024. Well,

35:40 certainly if there's anything I can do to offer guidance or help in any way, shape or form, I'm willing to do that. I'd actually like to sit in on one of your, whether it's presentations or

35:49 training courses, just to understand a little bit more about what it looks like. 'Cause conceptually it makes sense. And I get what it would look like when you're teaching people how to import a

35:60 data set and run a series of decline curves and create a type well and all those things. But it seems like there's a lot more than that, right? That's the technical piece, but you're also trying

36:08 to breed professionals and get people to actually do like real projects and not just hypothetical stuff. Sure. Well, and I mean, I did it, right? Like I was trained at middle and school. And

36:20 then I was a trainer when I was at Watrous. I trained the new technicians. And then at Marathon, they asked me to design their technician training curriculum. With some very nice management

36:32 consultants that they had hired and so I did actually have kind of multiple practice runs Putting together training curriculum and doing it wrong if you will so when it was time for me to write my own

36:44 I thought I did have all of the evidence to say what works and what doesn't and so our training right now is very Intentional every piece of its intentional. It's in just the right order over just

36:56 the right time frame with just the right pitfalls And just the right mistakes so that when we get to the end they they're ready for real projects But yeah, you're welcome over here anytime. So the

37:08 best time to come is final presentation day because you can watch around you'll see You know, you'll know where they started and then you'll see where they've come through the training program with

37:19 the work that they present You're always welcome

37:23 And you're brilliant Based in Houston, are most of your clients and people in Houston, or have you taken on some Denver and Calgary and Oklahoma and other folks? Years ago, we actually opened a

37:34 Denver office, but I had to close it, and that might be a story for another time. But it's real hard to manage employees in various cities I find. I probably could do

37:45 it now, but I have a really good developed team that I trust and I'm willing to depend on. I might've just gone at it too early with a Denver office That being said, our clients range from cities

37:56 big and small. We do a lot of work in Pittsburgh, Oklahoma City, Midland, Shreveport, Tyler,

38:06 Denver, Houston, San Antonio. And

38:11 so, we actually have never made a placement in Bakersfield out here. I do have friends out in Bakersfield. We have some clients out there, but I've never placed a QB deer out there I feel like

38:22 Bakersfield's compelling.

38:26 I like it. I also love Midland. Aaron and I, my lead trainer and I go out there to do a lot of training at our client's offices. And I have a good time. Every time I go to Midland, we have a

38:38 fabulous experience. I personally really like the weather and the climate. And I just, I don't know, I got a heart for small town. When I was in Midland last last time, I went into Starbucks and

38:49 I got my usual, you know, couple of drinks because I'm, I'm kind of a caffeine addict. And I get errands and I get Frankie's and I get a couple more and I'm walking out of the Starbucks with like

38:59 seven drinks. And a gentleman offered to carry them to my car. Nice. And I was like, I grown, this is, this is that Marshall, Texas feel. It was on the other side of the state, but it was,

39:12 it felt just like home. I like that. And I actually do like the, the weather in Midland more than Houston. Part of it's just the dry heat. I can deal with it. with the heat, we get some of that

39:24 here. Houston, that stickiness is tough. Even Houston people this summer were complaining about how hot it was. That's when you know it's hot. You're not going to hear me complaining about it. I

39:35 am like an evangelical Houstonian. I love Houston, but I'm not going to complain about the weather. I love the heat. Oh, I can't stand the cold. I told you my husband's British and I'm just,

39:47 man, I'm trying to wiggle out of going for Christmas right now. I don't like the cold. Yeah, my wife's trying to drag us to go to Boston and New Hampshire around around Christmas. And I'm like,

39:58 it's already too cold. But you know, I'm used to it. That's where I grew up. So it would be good to see family. You know, I've asked some questions and, you know, a few more that I kind of

40:09 want to dive into. Are there any stories that stand out to you about where you really embarrassed yourself or you feel like somebody embarrassed themselves in a meeting that stands out to I've used

40:23 this example, I even said it earlier today, but one time I gave a presentation at a major in Houston. I was standing up and presenting, it was passionate, and I sat down and my butt hit the front

40:33 of the chair and the chair flew back and my feet were basically as high as the desk. Like a really good way to break the ice, let me tell you. But curious if there's anything that can be physical,

40:41 it can be otherwise, but it stands out to you where you're like, that was bad. Yours is too good. I can't top your story, but obviously we've done some silly things One of my favorites, a great

40:53 cute year, a friend of yours, a friend of mine, I sent her to Dallas to do a sales meeting in a little bit of technician work with a royalty company and she flew out of hobby that morning and

41:06 checked her bag. Nice. What I didn't tell you was that it was an early flight, so she decided to fly up in her pajamas. She gets to. Yeah, she gets to love field, and of course they've lost her

41:17 bag. She's in pajamas She's gotta be at our client's office at nine. I said, go to Target by whatever you need, make up, new clothes, go to Target. I'm not kidding, she calls me. She's like,

41:30 I'm at Marshals and it doesn't open until 11. I was like, that's why I told you to go to Target. She walked into the meeting in those pajamas, but you know what, she got it done. She got it done.

41:40 They loved her, it was a wonderful presentation, and I'm sure her pajamas were very classy. But if you broke the ice, it broke the ice, but that is, for any of our youngsters listening, I think

41:53 that that is important. There are comfortable travel clothes. I sort of almost call it my uniform that I travel in. It's like really comfortable slacks or jeans, and then like a golf shirt. Like

42:05 no one's really gonna object to that. It may be sort of on the edge for some companies, but it's like, you know, if you forget your stuff, and that's what you wear, you know, it's not the end

42:14 of the world. The pajamas thing though, I will remember that. I like that Yeah. yeah, We've had, I mean. A lot of, I only had about an hour's worth of professionalism training when I started

42:25 QED. So 13 and a half years ago, that was one module, one lunch and learn, this is how to be a professional. Now we have over 40 hours worth of content that people go through for professional

42:37 skills and it's mostly mistakes. So over the years, clients have called in to complain, maybe not about a QED technician, maybe about somebody that works for them and we've just taken note We've

42:47 just taken note of every complaint we've ever heard and we've also made a ton of mistakes. We are humans and as we've made mistakes, we document them and we try and share them with the new QEDers so

42:59 that they don't have to make the same mistakes and a lot of those are really funny. A lot of those are really funny.

43:07 Denver is a problem for us with the Ubers. We had a - With the Ubers. Yeah, so we sent, this might have happened two times We sent someone to an interview at Camino Resources, Ward Poulton was

43:19 one of my - greatest supervisors I ever had the privilege to work. Oh, he's amazing. He came on the podcast with me and Tim a couple of years ago. That guy's awesome. I mean, I love him to death.

43:31 He cared for me way more than he ever cared about the bottom line. And I don't know if that's how it's supposed to be, but thanks be to God that he did, because that, he always took care of me.

43:42 And he always gave me great advice. And he is one of my great mentors. And he, when he was at Tudor Pickering Holt, was my first ever paying client So I owe a lot to Ward. That's just Ward,

43:52 right? Like he's, there's just some guys who are awesome and have no ego. And you can just tell, you get that sense. He was introduced to me from somebody who had listened to him speak once and

44:04 said, You need to have this guy on your podcast. Like this is the best speaker that I've ever listened to. And he was just so warm and easy to talk to him. Like what an awesome guy still responds

44:15 to emails. Like any company that's associated with him is fortunate Sorry, I'll let you get back. He's the real deal, right? Ward is the real deal. I absolutely, and his wife, Karen, is just

44:25 as amazing as he is, and their daughter, CJ, is absolutely amazing as well. I love their whole family. Tough name these days, Karen, but that's okay. Oh, I didn't think about that. You know,

44:38 when I think of Karen, all I think about is her gingerbread cookies. That woman made these gingerbread cookies, and I mean, 20 years later, I'm still thinking about them. Now, I'm kind of an

44:48 eater, Jeremy I know where to find good food, and in Houston, there's a lot of good places. But the story was I sent somebody the interview with Ward's team, and he gets in the Uber from the

44:60 airport, and he says, It is a smell in there. And it's kind of a marijuana smell, right? And he says he walks out of the Uber, and he's like, I know this suit smells like horrible, and I have

45:14 to walk into this interview

45:18 And then it happened again. a different interview and Jesse said, the driver did ask before he said, do you mind if I get loud? And we didn't, Jesse didn't know what that meant. I didn't know

45:30 what it meant. And Jesse thought he meant he was gonna turn the music up and he was like, yeah, yeah, get loud, get loud. And oh my goodness, no, he lit up. And Jesse - He's getting loud

45:39 apparently. It did. So we, you know, man, funny things have happened to us over the years and we try and run them down. The best Uber story I actually have is I pay for Ubers or all the QE Deers

45:51 any time they're doing business development activities. I don't want anybody drinking and driving. Even, not even one. So please use a corporate Uber. Any time you need to, I don't, please

46:00 don't drink and drive is what I tell the QE Deers. Well, I get a little report every morning of whoever used the Uber last night and that's fine. But one time I got, you know, like a somebody,

46:12 we didn't have any events and somebody took the Uber. And I looked, it was like Washington Avenue to U of H campus.

46:22 And I was like, Eddy T doesn't go to U of H. And so we, I was like, hey, man, what are you doing? He was like, oh, I had to go get a smoothie. No, you didn't. Come on. Left his prints all

46:33 over the crime scene. So I would say switch your, switch back to your personal over the counter. Boss will tell everyone.

46:43 It literally just did. That's funny. And good for you for doing that I mean, that's, I definitely support that mission. And it's crazy. I think drunk driving is kind of one of those things where

46:57 you take it almost for granted, 'cause people get popped for it and a lot of people just do it. But fundamentally, it's like really fucking dangerous. It's really not something that's okay. And

47:07 the punishments fit the crime. I mean, we were in that generation where people still did it all the time and acted like it was a normal thing And then we, our generation saw the consequences of

47:18 that. I saw, you know, My mom's best friend's has been go to jail and it wasn't that he was overly drunk and it wasn't, it was that he got in a little, he got in an accident. That person died

47:30 and there he goes into jail. Yeah, I mean, it's terrible, it's terrible. I remember that too and I think it was, I mean, especially growing up in the country, there was like one taxi and it

47:41 was like a van that was like privately owned. So I would, I used to walk to the softball field to watch like the beer drinking softball games it was close to my house. And now I always think about

47:52 it, these guys would get loud, like verbally loud and probably get loud the other way too. But there would just be heavy drinking and then people would just peel out of there with their trucks.

48:03 And I didn't think too much of it at the time, but it's sort of like every single one of those guys was probably over the legal limit. And that was just how it was in 1988. That's what happened.

48:15 And then you start to think a little bit more, And I think just in general. This next generation doesn't drink as much. I'm not totally sure why. It's just sort of the sense that I've gained. It

48:27 just seems like maybe less dependent on alcohol. It could be because they're more dependent on technology. But in general, like my generation, like we drank pretty heavily. And this younger

48:38 generation, not as much. I certainly think they drive less. I have had loads of QED years last couple of years that don't have driver's licenses, don't drive I didn't have - They don't drive at

48:49 all. Yeah, don't drive at all. You expect that in a city like London or New York, but Houston is certainly strange.

48:59 I've had people take the bus back and forth to my office. So I had to say I was a bit shocked about that, but lots of people do the park and ride, but I'm talking city buses and that's okay.

49:11 That's definitely,

49:15 Obers people do I don't know man my son turned 16 this month. He doesn't want to get his driver's license either I think I think they're gonna be less Or I don't know they they have everything they

49:25 need at home why they need to drive So then you don't have to drive them all over the place, but anyways, that's a that's a different story Two more questions and I'm gonna let you go And you kind

49:35 of already touched on this one But one thing I like to ask my guests is like what what advice would you either give to your younger self or that? You do like to impart on the younger people that you

49:44 do come in touch with a lot like what what would you suggest? To a younger version of Courtney Stevens or to somebody that just comes into the program Can be work. It can be personal It can be

49:58 financial you name it. What do you think is something that's important for you to impart that you could have imparted on yourself or to somebody else? Well, I mean to my to me to my younger self,

50:08 I would say you're gonna make mistakes and it's gonna be okay Um, I think. I would have told my younger self, somebody doesn't deserve an audience with you just because they ask for it. I would

50:23 tell myself to be more discerning in how I spent my time. Say no more. Say no more. Absolutely. I got an email this morning. I feel like I have to now pull this up. Hang

50:37 on. That, it said something like, it was sort of all about like creating space for yourself But here we go. I want to find this. This is somebody who I went to college with who's a total badass.

50:50 And I want to read this verbatim. Her email that she sent to everyone's called giving you time and boundaries. And she said, No is a complete sentence. I love it, man. I do too. I also love

51:05 that you're such an advocate and such a cheerleader for other successful people. I mean, I really appreciate that. Yeah, I like to see people succeed, always have just fundamental to who I am. I

51:20 feel like you're competitive like me 'cause we're both competitive. And at the same time, you lift people up. You give people credit where credit is due and you bring people along with you on the

51:29 ride. I appreciate that. Thanks. Yeah, well, I mean, this isn't entirely appropriate, but one of my friends said to me, like at some point, maybe it's in your early 30s, you start to realize

51:42 like, somebody's gonna have, there's always gonna be somebody that has more money and a longer

51:49 unit. I'm, I picked up what you were putting down there. So, and you know what? Sometimes it could be the same person that has both of those. So, you know what? Like, what are you gonna do

52:00 about it? Are you gonna be like mad because you don't have that? Or are you just gonna do what you can for yourself? And it's sort of like how I like to adopt things as, okay, cool, like that

52:10 guy's got more money. Good for him. There's probably something to be learned for that. I can't control any of that, but what I can control is

52:18 my attitude and my execution. So I'll focus on that. Oh yeah. I'm competing against myself every day, I think. Yeah, that's the best competition to run. It's the one to be a better me, for

52:29 sure. You got it. Where can people find you and find your company before we sign off? Absolutely. So our website is

52:39 qedbacom, qedenergyassociates. Feel free to hit me up on LinkedIn On the old LinkedIn all the time, our new recruiter, and hopefully future sales professional, Sarah Carpenter, be happy to take

52:50 any questions you might have, if anybody knew, if you got that directionless brother-in-law, has an her friend, send him my way. I'd love to give him a shot. I'm not saying it's always gonna

53:01 work out 'cause like I said, 50 truncate from our training program, but for the 50 that make it wow, they have fabulous lives and I'm glad to get to be a part of them. You could be the next person

53:12 with a917, 000 bonus check listening to this podcast. But seriously, again, that was QEDEAcom. QEDEAcom.

53:23 And Courtney Stevens on LinkedIn. You're a good one, Courtney. Keep grinding. Keep doing what you do. And keep raising these young folks right in our industry. Happy birthday, man.