Ventin' with Fenton
0:01 Ladies and gentlemen, it is time for Venton with Sarah Fenton. That's all I got today. It's early on a Friday. It's tired. Has she got your rhyme for today? Venton with then, that's what we're
0:15 doing. You should have a session where you can just kind of bring everybody together and they're allowed to vent to you, right, at EQT, and you call it Venton with then. Everybody sort of gets it
0:25 off their chest, right? I don't know. Oh, you guys are innovative I kind of like the idea, you know, culture's a big thing here at EQT, so we could do something like that, and I don't know if
0:35 we have something like that, but culture, culture boosters are pretty important at EQT, so maybe I could work that in somehow. It's a good idea, I like it. Well, we're gonna start well before
0:46 EQT. I know you've had a kind of a fun career and certainly fun for me to see that you had roots in Denver for such a long time and doing a podcast yesterday it's I Tell Sarah I said hi so you're at
1:00 sundance for a minute but even before that you lived in Colorado for fifteen years believe you grew up in in Michigan or at least went to Michigan Tech so I won't like the full dose who who is serafin
1:13 Oh Man I Guess Yeah it starts back in Michigan I went up to Michigan sack for undergrad and then I did a certain familiar Yeah yes as boring born just north of Detroit Okay then went up to to Michigan
1:28 tech for Undergrad I actually met my husband an undergrad in a chair lift seller so we've been together I think this is our twenty third year together actually and then after undergrad moved out east
1:40 for a little bit worked out there and my my claim to fame was I worked for a semiconductor manufacturing facility and designed the electrostatic diode for the Nintendo game Cube I Dunno If You
1:54 Remember the Nintendo game Cube There's a small component on that board, very, very small, but that was one of my first projects. Did you get your name on it or anything? I wish I did. If I was
2:05 smarter, I would have done that, but I didn't know. So I did that. And then in the headed west, the skiing was definitely better out west and came out actually in brood beer. So I was a brewing
2:15 manager for a large domestic brew house up in Fort Collins. And then went back to grad school, went to Colorado State, go Rams Yeah. And from there, got into oil industry after that with Encana
2:31 and Denver. What's it like working as a, I mean, I know what it's like sitting on in a brewery, drinking the beer, but what's it like working in a brewery? Oh, it's awesome. There's, I mean,
2:42 brewing itself is not too difficult, but the scale and the size of a large domestic brew house, I mean, it's an engineer's dream really when you think about it from all the heat exchangers, super
2:55 critical steam. And then you go into the food science side with the fermentation and things like that. I mean, that was, it was, it was a ton of fun. I worked with a good group of people, uh,
3:05 drank a lot of good beer too. And you got to, you got to know like the, uh, the local brewers as well. Like, um, I remember some of my first experiences was getting to know, like Jeff and Kim
3:15 with new Belgium, getting to know Doug at Odell's when they were still small, um, this is a long, long time ago. So there was a local kind of brewers guild kind of thing, um, going on in, in
3:26 Northern Colorado, um, and then of course connecting up with the course down in golden was always good. So, um, it was a good time. I learned a lot about beer, drink a lot of beer, um, I saw
3:37 on dirty jobs, micro thing. He, he, he went into it a brewery somewhere and I forget what the German word was, but basically everybody had a glass of beer on their desk or somewhere nearby at any
3:48 point. Was it was, don't ruin my dreams. Was it anything like that? Oh, not, not necessarily while you're working. but I will say nothing left the brew house without us tasting it. Nothing
4:01 came into the brew house without us tasting it and nothing left without us tasting it. So that includes all the cereal grains, all the malt. We all had to taste and then of course the teas that go
4:13 with that so we'll make teas out of it to understand like the flavor profile and then anything leaving also had to be tasted. So I will say the tasting room was great There's some safety precautions
4:26 also with the tasting room such as a breathalyzer as you can imagine. So make sure you're not, you're not, you're doing the right thing. But yeah, that was a great thing and a nice perk for me.
4:38 Man, just think about how great would have been to graduate and go work there for a couple of years out of school just, I don't know, as sure. Oh yeah, so this is working life. Yeah, and that
4:49 part was really cool 'cause I was young, fresh out of school, Probably one of my first leadership positions as well. In addition, they were going through a big expansion also. And so they were
4:58 kind of switching over, or adding like 20 new fermenters, as well as switching over their control systems from an older Alan Bradley to a newer Siemens. And so from an engineering controls
5:10 perspective, that was fascinating too. So not only was I brewing beer and learning how to do that, we were completely doing a, I'll call it like a modernization of the brewery at the same time.
5:20 So there was some real cool engineering side of it that was, I actually learned a lot, a lot about, I guess that side of manufacturing and really the beer biz, the large scale beer biz also. Wow,
5:36 I think that there's some interesting parallels here because the brewery industry, the brewing industry really has taken off over the last 20 years. And certainly where you're at with EQT, you guys
5:48 have become, I mean, a very large organization. I don't know what the well count is now, but it's probably gonna be like 40. thousand plus. I mean, it's a ton, right? So you've become almost
5:58 a manufacturing gas company where you just very quickly and methodically go about your process and try to maintain some level of consistency. As it goes with the brewery and the brewing, how do you
6:13 maintain the consistency? Like, that's one of the things that's always been interesting to me is I love going to the micro breweries here that we have in Colorado. They've popped up all over. Odd
6:22 13 is one of my favorites. But one of the things that I like or maybe don't like is the, every batch seems a little bit different, right? Like maybe they got malts from here and the supply chain
6:33 wasn't right with the hops, so they had to put in Galaxy instead of Mosaic, right? And some things just a little bit different, even with their flagship stuff. How do the big breweries, the
6:43 macro breweries, maintain that quality and that consistency, like on a mass scale? Oh, it's fascinating. So I think it starts with the supply chain. and consistency in your supply chain. And it
6:57 starts with, I'll call it your, your beer design. So at IQTT, we have a proven standard well design for different areas that we operate. I would say the large domestics do the same thing, right?
7:11 And so it's all about the water and the water quality. Obviously the raw materials, the grains, the malts coming in and of course the yeast. And so there's a few things in there that make sure
7:23 that it's real, real consistent with yeast. Hence what you're having to taste the malt when it comes in, right? That's right, yeah, you gotta taste the malt and the malt isn't like, you don't
7:34 do all the tasting just randomly, there's taste training. So you have to go through taste school and flavor profile school and everybody has a different
7:44 things that they can pick up and taste and smell. And so you go through that training, what you're looking for, other things that might indicate you have an issue. add for the beer but it might
7:55 change the flavor profile a little bit and I think that same idea the same concept in beer manufacturing regular manufacturing even freaky tea holds true today right having a good standard design and
8:08 an a proven economic and design is is really I think can what set your parks keeps costs low keeps your forecasts accurate keeps confidence in your type curves and your reserves right now that doesn't
8:21 mean you don't get to play around with things of course right we see we see large domestic brewers put new products out all the time I'll think about it when I was back there to Chiesa was the thing
8:32 I'll remember to Chiesa Chiesa that and and and Zima I Dunno if you Remember Bremer Zimmer they just repurposed and now it's the hottest sewing thing ever they just call it like snow melts or whatever
8:46 road highlands right but you know thinking about that and in the way you test that you can factor a little bit of that time, but your flagship, your standard, that's, you know, kind of your bread
8:57 and butter. That's what you hold consistent and then you play a little bit with, with other products. So you can still innovate, right? You can still evolve the way you think about it, maybe
9:06 find new products or even make your current products better, but doing it methodically. So yeah, I guess there is a lot of parallels, not only I'm talking to you guys, probably like. Also, you
9:15 know, implementing the control systems that sets you up for real time monitoring transition and the online gas base as well Yeah, that's a really good point too. You know, one of the things we did,
9:26 the brewmaster, every, I think it was every Monday, we would sit down and back then it was just a whole bunch of transparencies. I don't know, you remember those like slides and transparencies
9:37 and we would print out KPI charts. I forget what we called them there, but now I know it's called a key performance indicator like a main metric, but we would see how each thing was doing Maybe it
9:47 was pH, maybe it was
9:52 water temperature, steam quality and things like that and of course gravity or balling you know how that's trending with time on the different brews and whether it was a a full body brew or a light
10:04 body brew of right it just depends and so we would look at those but Yeah having that modern control system allowed us to bring that data right in and not not so much live but at least having it and
10:15 then being able to put it on a plot and printed on a transparency so we could look at it but there's no transparency see through a piece of paper you would stick an overhead projector Yeah that's
10:26 right that brings you back to like being in sixth grade when we would do current events on the projector knowledge when I first got into the business doing sales demos and training trainings and
10:38 things we couldn't tell you so we would walk in with a stack of transparencies an overhead projector because we didn't know if our client was going to have an overhead projector in the conference room
10:51 so we have to where I came in with a dollar my Laptop My Overhead Projector my Transparencies the whole bit
10:60 that was the early nineties it's while I mean that was before computers were invented to him so well that dinosaurs were roaming around I carry over my shoulder I can tell you that a probably hurt
11:14 because who has twenty plants have since Sarah I I want to talk a little bit about your your time of Colorado obviously I'm here in Colorado I moved out here sight unseen of about eighteen years ago I
11:25 love it and it will get into Pittsburgh and all that but but talk a little bit about living here kind of the things that you liked and and and ultimately you know what what drove you to Pittsburgh
11:37 Yeah I mean that's a real good question I think when I made the transition out to Pittsburgh a lot of my My My Friends in Denver thought what are you doing Sarah you can meet your trade in Colorado
11:48 for Pittsburgh though and I basically said Heck Yeah I am Peace Outnumbered And then the reason I did that, a big thing that obviously my husband and I love is skiing, right? Now, the skiing out
11:58 here is very different obviously than out west, but you know what? That's why we got airplanes and cars and flights so we can get back out there. Exactly. But here, what's great about this area,
12:09 what I love doing out west was trail running, mountain biking, climbing, kayaking, stand up paddleboarding, all those outdoor activities you can do in Colorado, you can do
12:22 here It's almost like a little, I didn't know this, but it feels almost like a little hidden gem. And the one thing that is great about Pittsburgh versus Denver, shade, shade. It's like this
12:33 luxury item, right? When I lived in Denver, I could no ever go for a run after work. I'd either have to do it bright and early in the morning or do it real late at night with a headlamp. Here
12:43 after work, just about every park around here, and there's a lot of parks, has awesome single track shaded
12:52 that was a real nice feature moving to Pittsburgh when a German I would discuss is on our podcast before but my first trip to Pittsburgh of Years ago and I was surprised not to see the steel town of
13:09 the seventies when they show that this Pittsburgh Steelers and the Guy with the Gruff voice doing his thing and just smokestacks and everything it was I was surprised at just how aussies were clean
13:21 that's not the right word but how natural it looked you know and it was it was clean air was there was no it's not just a big industrial wipe out of the city now Yeah and You'd have no idea that that
13:37 this is one of the largest natural gas plays in the world in fact where I live I live in Washington County from kind of the core of the Southwest Appalachia Region and I Live In Range resources
13:52 countries wide range resources wells underneath Me I got to I got to a location a pad just across the street you'd have no idea right that that we live in this huge large very industrial largest
14:04 natural gas play in an almost the world and I'm still out there trail running mountain biking and it feels like I was you know in the mountains or in Denver right I mean they've done a real good job
14:16 with preserving the parks making sure some of the surface locations you've got places to play that are close and well maintained so that that's been a real nice I would say consistency between you
14:28 know the lifestyle ahead in Colorado to what I've got out here in Pittsburgh and I was pleasantly surprised I had no idea right and then when I get out there and I start seeing what's going on and I
14:37 talk with some of my friends and my network back in Colorado and I'm showing them pictures of what I do they're like why that's not the image that they have of Pittsburgh and certainly not the image
14:46 that they have of a typical oil gas field right moment it's very unique different than something you'd see out west. The city of Pittsburgh is missing out there. You don't see commercials for it.
14:57 They're not selling it.
15:00 No one knows that they should move there.
15:05 You know, I would agree with you, no one knows. The other thing too, I think that's great about Pittsburgh is right next door, West Virginia, right? You've got those gorgeous mountains down
15:13 there. There's a lot of good rock climbing, mountain biking,
15:19 definitely trail running and the golfing. I'm a big golfer too. The golfing out here is fantastic also, just gorgeous scenery. And just east of town is Mr. Arnold Palmer, his hometown there. So
15:33 that's kind of cool little history there for the golfers listening. Okay, nice. So with, see, I think you moved out there and you left Sundance and took the job with rice, right? And so this
15:46 was actually when it still was rice before it became. before there was the acquisition with the QT and that ultimately the QT team the rice the prevailing and taking over to get it so so what was it
15:60 like that one year must have been kind of a whirlwind for you to move go to accompany the company gets sold then you're at a different company then there's all that sort of like public I don't
16:10 remember what turmoil whatever all the news and then the Buzz coming out of a UTI office what was it like that first like year year and a half for you when you moved out there oH it was wild it's
16:22 probably one of my best memories in the in my career in oil and gas you know when I when the position came available at Rice I thought no Way I'm not leaving Denver in Atlanta I'll go out there and
16:34 and listen to what these guys have to say and I get out there I start talking with them and actually see like what they're doing and I'm like it guys it was drastically different and it starts with
16:46 culture alright And the key thing with culture is thinking about how everyone's aligned and for us, we call it the mission alignment. And just seeing the way
16:57 the rice, I'll call it the operating model, was kind of set up from a mission alignment to transparency in data, data structure, thinking about working in a good modern way with this digital work
17:10 environment. It was something I'd never seen before, right? I came from large companies that honestly operated off of spreadsheets, email, using an access database, I'm sure you know what I'm
17:23 talking about, an access database as a data warehouse, like that type of stuff, right? And that's what I was used to. And then you kind of come over and you see the idea and the concept that's
17:32 happening. And it's like, this is the revolution, this industry needs, and I want to see it on the train. And so it was a no-brainer when I came over. So when I came over, I came out, and a
17:44 little interesting story is, I didn't move all the way out. i know I know in general people are usually on their best behavior during an interview right and I interviewed with a lot of folks it was
17:54 a full day of interviews and I thought well everyone's always on their best behavior before I make a pretty big life change let's just do this step by step so I moved out into an apartment furnished
18:05 apartment and I think was a month to month lease or something and it was within walking distance of the building and just to make sure before before the whole crew and everybody came out from colorado
18:17 let's just make sure this is a really up to expectations and I'll tell you what probably a probably a month or two in my husbands like Sarah what are we doing you know we're traveling back and forth
18:29 you know is this is this is this legit and I was like this is legit so and he he gets everything ready gets you know takes care of everything back in Colorado starts getting everything moved out and
18:40 you Guys know how a packing goes they come in they pack up your house put on boxes and the next day the the truck shows up and they load the truck well houses packed my husband is actually on a blow
18:52 up mattress and you know waiting for the you know sleeping on the floor waiting for the guys to show up with the truck the next day that morning that morning I call him at five thirty mountain time
19:03 seventh or Moreno rice gets acquired by equity row bright and you know he's he he asked me is everything okay I said Yeah Everything's okay We just got acquired he's like do you have a job so now he's
19:18 like you know the whole house is backed up in the truck semi trucks going to be here in like thirty minutes or like in a couple of hours and I said Yeah I know he's like what are we doing and I said I
19:30 think it's momentum at this point you know let's let's go we moved out we still moved out and we had from June to November and to kind of you know get things in order here but we all kind of know what
19:43 happened in November right he could he bought us all of the rice leadership was severed they you know and so we went on Our Merry Way I was a retired I guess maybe on Sabbatical for a little bit and
19:56 then now we're all back there was a handful of Us you know when the proxy campaign and everything was going on that was really kind of handled by toby and in some of the the the rice team there and
20:07 and then when we all came back in and asked you know kind of to help with this takeover there was a handful of recall shall annuals that were asked to to kind of come back and help turn things around
20:19 and so I was one of those folks and toby got voted in on a Wednesday I think and then on Monday and I had a job and it was a little daunting at first but it was a it's a pretty exciting part of my My
20:34 Life and my career and the other side of that tea was while I was on sabbatical or in you know retired or whatever I was actually getting an executive M B A from a university oklahoma they have a real
20:43 amazing program for Energy I was in that and I'll tell you during the during the one of my last classes it was called corporate governance and restructuring and I thought man I Dunno if I'm Gonna find
20:56 this really you know that that and I like interesting one of the best classes cause I'm watching corporate governance in action like deramous are living a proxy campaign and everything and so I
21:09 thought it was fascinating to really see it in action and all these business case studies and things we were looking at I thought man this this this is a bit this is a harvard business review case
21:19 study in the making the audience oH it was a it was one of the best times of my life stressful I'm not sure what's going to happen from the move to the acquisition to the takeover to where we are now
21:31 but Yeah when I look back on and all my Mandate I couldn't have planned that any better does it feel like like it did it rise or you were there for that long before the acquisition but nonetheless
21:43 does the QT now feel like what Roosevelt worked before Yeah, that's a really cool question. So, you know, the key thing is when we came back in, we basically changed out the board, changed out
22:01 the executive team, and then changed out the department heads. And, but all the other, you know, all the other EQT people, they were here. And so it was just with that small change that we went
22:12 from a place that was not a nice place to work, to being voted top workplace in Pittsburgh. Yeah. Just what felt like, it felt like overnight, but it was definitely about a year in the making,
22:25 but just from a culture perspective where EQT was before versus now, they're drastically different. And I'll say it's probably even better than what we had at Rice. We've got, there's some new
22:36 tech out there that's made things a little easier for us. The, you know, we've got scale on our side too, which as a, as a reservoir engineer, I love that because then you get to play. with a
22:46 little bit more Yum You've got your standard design and then he can play A little bit so from a scale perspective it's Great so Yeah I would say it's probably even better than where it was at rice and
22:57 let's let's be intimate you remember this to actually remember being in Pittsburgh with you at one point when I went out to visit rice when they were in I Guess Canonsburg area that the contrast in
23:10 cultures was was very stark right like you go to acuity and it was very buttoned up and and you know had that remnants of one hundred year old company that also as a utility that's also a midstream
23:23 company right that's just like dyed in the wool Pittsburgh and then you go to rice and there's there's music playing right and and people are high fiving I mean literally titles they made up yes
23:36 reserves are right ryan cancer what was used the Ryan cancer Engineering commander or something like Yeah indoor reserves that's what he had on his art no it was it was it it was just such a stark
23:51 contrast to having had that experience and seeing both of them I'm like oh man like from the outside sure it's just you know at a merger of natural gas companies but it's like man these two companies
24:02 could not be more different right therapy the age or the the style or the culture or the technology adoption right the pace just very different that doesn't mean that that equity was wrong for how
24:14 they did it it's just sort of how they did it and I think this natural evolution with sort of that race culture is is surely a positive for not only the city but but for the organization I think the
24:25 industry to Yeah no I think that's a really cool observation because when you think about and when you think about what makes an employee happy right and winning we're always focused on winning
24:37 winning is fun and winning is happy so we love winning how do you define winning while you just use you set what good looks like and what you're going to measure right and so that kind of goes back to
24:49 our mission alignment so having that strong mission alignment as well as you know what our core values of teamwork heart trust evolution and winning and then when we think about the core values we
25:02 think about also making sure those are all lined but also the transparency behind what does good look like a key thing to we always talk about for being happy a happy employee is like productive
25:14 challenged and recognise so productive they're working on stuff that matters how do you do that you do that with the mission alignment and it starts with toby right he's got his mission alignment what
25:24 he where he wants to take the strategy of the company and then each of his department heads then find their peace in there and expand it for their role and I run our asset performance group which is a
25:37 a different name for You probably have never heard this title for the division but it's basically Geology reservoir engineering and reserves because all of those functions kind of come together in one
25:48 area which is great for consistency and and continuity in analysis and and the and the team dynamics so then you think about alright we got the mission Alignment we're all going to I know what I'm
25:58 going to do for the department and then we're going to write it for each role so every person has one and what they're responsible for so now they know that they're tied to the higher purpose and they
26:07 can see themselves in their boss and their boss's boss so with our productive their challenge what they're working on some of it's easy some of it's not Gotta be thinking through it but defining what
26:18 success looks like and what good looks like makes it real clear for them these are the milestones here's the first second third step so there's a there's a lot of planning that goes into that and then
26:29 the third piece is recognized right so we love recognizing each other and celebrating each other when we're winning and we'll do that through shout outs will do that through a badge program will do
26:42 that through different culture booster events we have a a thing for Ah it's basically a menu of things we do to boost culture a good examples are AH are of course happy hours and be Trivia nights and
26:57 even you know doing talks with toby one of the great things that he does for the company is you know after Hartley we had an earnings call Yesterday after earnings call he'll jump on the web acts and
27:07 have kind of an all hands meeting where people can ask him questions and he's live it's like those type of sessions where you can connect directly with some of the executives and just brings a lot of
27:17 transparency to what we do and so I think those three things combined with the Mission Alignment is really what makes equity great it's that culture side of things I'm a big proponent of the culture
27:29 I've been in those I'm sure we all have we work for those companies that maybe didn't have the best culture job and it was as tough it wasn't fun working there if you don't see people high five and
27:40 you'll see music playing right road you do now right at eighteen and so that's Earth's real important to Me and I think equity has an awesome culture it's like one of our I feel like it's a little bit
27:53 of a slow little secret like our secret weapon and like man I want to go work at EA kitty sounds like You're Sorta Pretty good to me
28:04 not recited wanting to know German kind of on the sales side of things of Course I had a project going with the QT when the whole retake over by Toby was going on I was kind of like I can get to nice
28:19 and there's not likely to happen let's just keep pressing forward and of course you know we're watching and then I'm at a conference know we're all in a panic here now about it since everything's
28:30 changed where we don't know anything so it's kind of interesting time I think jeremy even had got caught up on but you were to work on both sides of think Yeah, I forget which side I wanted to
28:40 prevail, but it was just more fascinating to watch really from the outside. I think it was like around the same time as the Cambridge and PDC stuff too, where they were sort of pulling a similar
28:51 card, which was also kind of fascinating. And that one was right under my nose out here. And I think LE at QEP was happening at the same time. Yeah, right. It was the LE at QEP, the Cambridge
29:04 PDC. Right CQT, yeah, and yeah, it was an awesome time to be in corporate governance and restructuring.
29:13 That's when you wanna learn. I wanna talk about ESG. I'll get to that in a second. I think one thing I wanted to touch on with EQT, and this came up yesterday in one of the podcasts I did, you
29:26 guys are 100 remote now at EQT,
29:31 which is, this is a big evolution I'm sure some people are listening and being like, so what big deal? This is a big deal because oil and gas companies just simply don't do this so can you kind of
29:40 walk us through the evolution of of what changed and and is this the play going forward Yeah so I think this is a this is a really cool thing that Dickie T doesn't it's I think it's pretty unique like
29:53 you said for our for our industry so and you know kind of going back to the way we worked at rice and some of the tech that we have what what's kind of crazy is the way we work we call it our digital
30:03 work environment right there's a combination of enterprise apps software as well as the kind of the way we work and salesforce's our platform you've heard of kind of toby talk about that now we have
30:14 customized it for herself and the way we work but that tech we we had it at rice and wheat we actually demoed it for equity they had it for two years and never used it so when we came back and we kind
30:28 of got that going I think it was that approach maybe I'll just call her I T strategy a real a good a good strong ity strategy kind of laid the foundation for when covert hit and when we're forced to
30:39 work from home right we were forced to kind of go back and that really set US up for success we were connected it was real easy to stay in communication to get work done and track performance and make
30:52 sure we are winning right everybody's kind of tied to their crew metrics now we didn't have crew metrics at the time but we had kind of oliver insight setups we could take action and we would have
31:02 triggers to let us know he is an issue someone look at this oh we need this analysis it was I think that framework of that foundation that we built that when covert hit it was a it was just natural
31:13 we're like okay cool we're at home Yeah i Gotta get a little setup I Gotta get a light i Gotta Give Camera I got you know make sure I get a good comfy chair and a lot of the the equipment that we had
31:22 in the office we said if you Guys need something at home put in a ticket will either ship it to you if you're local you will meet you in the plaza garage you know safely you can pick up a chair or
31:33 whatever you need right and really make it you know, make your home, work environment good. And then here's what I think was awesome. This is another glimpse into our culture. We would take a
31:43 survey of the workforce, right? And we would do surveys, not all the time, but maybe a couple of times a year where we say, Hey, how are you guys feeling about working from home? How do you
31:53 feel about how EKT is handling COVID? And really get some honest feedback. And it's a new, it's an anonymous survey. And what we found like early on, and I'm gonna, these are rough numbers, but
32:04 early on when COVID hit, you know, said, you know, we took a survey, do you guys, how do you feel about working from home? Do you want to go back to the office? What's your thoughts? And what
32:12 does that look like? I think 80 of the people said, I never want to go back. And we're like, Whoa. But there was some uncertainty there with COVID, vaccines, how it's all gonna play out, right?
32:23 We were just like, I feel more comfortable at home. Great. Well, we knew we were still hitting our metrics, still doing all of that, right? So at that time,
32:34 What were we going through I'm trying to think back that was twenty twenty that was probably the summer of two thousand and twenty maybe fall two thousand and twenty we were working on chevron right
32:43 we acquired Chevron Appalachia closed on that December first so here we are from our basements guest bedrooms kitchen tables were doing big deals and and and frankly like crushing it and we're like
32:58 alright so this is working so then we we asked the team again come out maybe six months later and said you know how he has feeling cause we were trying to take this quarter by quarter that's tough to
33:08 plan especially for parents written want to know do I need daycare how do I work all this and a lot of robin areas schools and daycare facilities so we said alright let's do another survey how you
33:19 guys feeling you know do you want to come back to work if you do come back what what does that look like for you what would make you feel safe and half the people said I never want to go back
33:30 the other half said though I'd go back once a month
33:34 People love a working from home, right? They love it. Yeah. So if they love it and we're still winning, why wouldn't we? Right? Yeah. So even during that time, then we do Ulta, right? We
33:47 did the big Ulta transaction, again, from our basements and guest bedrooms. So we're doing big deals. There was some other financial transactions that are happening, again, from this happens to
33:58 be my guest bedroom, and doing all these deals, crushing it, and people are happy. They like that flexibility. And so we made the call to work from, let's see, work from just about anywhere
34:12 indefinitely. And that, you know, what's great about that as a leader, now, you know, the job market's tight. Now we can get access to talent from just about anywhere. Yeah, exactly You know,
34:25 and like you guys interviewed Jose, and we just scooped up Jose, and he's there in Houston, just had another member to the team named Johan. he's a he's in Houston as well and then of course some
34:36 of the Altar Folks right we've got a couple of Folks Richard and Jeff that came over from Alto they're in Houston so now we've got this good diverse work group which also brings diversity of thought
34:47 which is great and so from a leadership perspective the talent that you can attract with remote work just skyrockets there were four we were we were somewhat beholden to folks that wanted to be in the
34:59 Pittsburgh region you know and and for people that are rooted in Oklahoma or Texas or Colorado that's tough right they got their connections are committed their family there and and and so now with
35:08 remote work it just opens things up and so it's been it's been a it's been a really cool experiment but I'll tell you what people love it and it's just another indicator of some of the forward
35:20 thinking that we've got here at kitty and and really the the modern way of working which which is really empowering for people are as Limitless play Old School Guy for a second See there's always that
35:32 argument Yeah it's great to the remote but sometimes you really just need to be together for something is that still you guys foster gatherings like that or how do you how do you do that Yeah that's a
35:43 good question so early on when the you know there are some rules and some guidelines let's say from Osha kind of prohibited that right we still wanted all be safe as those start to Relax yeah for
35:55 folks that are here we typically will get together if there's a work project we have to get together for alright cool like a good example was there as a SP society of petroleum engineers event and it
36:05 was some modeling on OH Sam I think it was like value or how to optimise value or something and I really wanted to kind of see that so the team we at least myself and some of my Sub department heads
36:17 we did get together and it was cool to see each other it was cool to kind of sit in on that session because it wasn't virtual other things are like we are planning like a team event where we fly up
36:26 folks from Houston to get everybody together but here's the real cool Thing got to kind of simulate the water cooler talk or you know when you would walk by somebody's office and just like catch up or
36:38 like Hey I just got a quick question for you we're we're using a cool tool to do that I dunno if you've heard of a gather town Yeah I just heard about this this week i forget who Jake corley of
36:51 wildcatters was was talking about so what is it tim you Haven't heard of those of you new to me Oh Yeah so think Super Mario Bros think legends of Zelda maybe like that type of graphics you have a
37:05 little avatar and it's it's basically this is webex but you can walk your person over and and you can go say Oh I I See You know i see jose years angle are sitting there I'm Gonna go talk with them
37:17 about a couple things just got a couple of quick questions or myself I'll just go hang out at the breakfast Bar Put My Little Avatar the Breakfast Bar and I'll be working away taking care of stuff but
37:26 if people have a question they can just come over real quick instead of scheduling fifteen minutes on my calendar with webex right so really trying to simulate that an AD HOC water cooler style has
37:38 been really cool and so were she was still kind of learning the etiquette and you know I obviously wear the so sometimes I can't hear people when they talk to me but I will hear a little voice like Oh
37:48 I can hear when I put them on my desk and hear somebody talking and I pick them up like oh hey what's up and so that part's really cool too that was a new feature that came out actually as part of our
37:58 culture Survey so you Guys probably know most most companies take a culture survey read every year they'll ask you to do this anonymous third party thing and then it kind of goes nowhere right you
38:10 never can hear what happens you never actually kind of see the data if you do it's kind of you know HR just tells ya we take a different approach her dignity so that third party survey we take it to
38:20 heart and we like to see general themes we don't get all the results of course but we get themes and kind of where we're ranking on certain things and maybe how we've moved your one of the things that
38:30 wasn't great yet antiquity was some of the meetings and we did have a lot of meetings are when we all went virtual we were trying to figure out how to get a hold of people gather was one of those
38:41 solutions to help us with minimizing the formal meetings and bringing back the informal quick water cooler one second five minute questions type of stuff so it really kind of stemmed out of some of
38:52 the culture surveys and and listening to what folks were saying and doing something about it let's take an action
38:59 essential cause i Remember I love Schlumberger Gonna work for spotfire back in two thousand and it was there was a hey you're going to work from home remotely you're if you're not a boston your own
39:11 remote ok Great and I Remember Telling somebody I'm so much more efficient at home what would take me eight hours in the Office I can get done at three hours mister what do you Miss or how How's that
39:24 I said because of all the distractions you have in the office water cooler stuff all that so what do you miss why miss all those distractions yeah the guys talking about you know the Astros game or
39:38 whatever out in the hallway and you go get in there and you start talking about those are the things that you know that I would kind of Miss I miss that now even though I no I'm not committed one
39:50 hundred percent remote i see no reason to go back into the office I just moved my office different parts of the house apparently so Tim Marshall and I talked about this at one point and when both of
40:02 US were working from home consistently and I just you know you almost become like a like an introvert right like all of a sudden you sort of Curl up in your own little shell like I don't need to to go
40:14 out I like this OH I don't need to make phone calls they'll just send an email and then all of a sudden you become this like recluse almost straight so it's good to have these sort of forced social
40:23 situations and otherwise you just start to like so very inward and and become less productive sometimes right Yeah it can go it can go both ways and I want to jump into E S G a little bit because this
40:37 is certainly a hot topic right now and I see that you Guys do some of the you know certified natural gas and and all of that good stuff can you talk about what the you know what yes she means to you
40:49 Guys as an organization and how you feel like you're being proactive with the you know what we could see down the road yet Yeah so when we think about Yesterday Al St environmental social and
41:02 governance right so thinking about the governance that those are kind of the rules at which a company operates like the guidelines that they operate by one of the key things I think when we think
41:12 about or and an easier more tangible one as you look at our board right when we completely switched out the board we brought in a whole new mix of diversity a thought as well as you know a blend of
41:26 females and males right you're typically didn't see that you certainly don't see that in oil and gas right and so now we've got a female dominated board which is awesome and some really impressive
41:36 board members and I every time i meet with them I'm always impressed with their engagement other questions and certainly their their background right they really bring some cool ideas and thoughts
41:47 that to help us and guide us in the right direction so I think we're kind of forward thinking they're on the social side of things right a socialist kind of what you're doing for your community your
41:55 stakeholders and culture right I'm a stakeholder just like a shareholders a stakeholder just like a a royalty or a mineral owner a landowner's Stakeholder and so for us one of the key things for me is
42:08 that culture side of things and so we we've already talked a ton about culture and the way we work and then obviously on the environmental side right some of the the biggest things we're doing some of
42:17 the bigger needle mover things is new maddox right or everyone seems to be talking about this but for us as the largest natural gas producer you know I think we've Got Almost, I think at this point,
42:29 four to 5, 000 producing wells between horizontals and of course some verticals in there in a couple of different regions, over three states, a lot of pneumatic devices. And so where our
42:41 production team is actually, it's
42:44 amazing to watch them work, but all the transition that they're doing from some of the gas-driven pneumatics to the air-driven. And that is the biggest component to some of our emissions. So when
42:55 we kind of get ahead of that with some of our proactive approach, I think that makes us a little bit kind of ahead of the game. But then also when you think about our net zero, right? We put a
43:05 recent thing out for unleashing US. LNG and we talk about that, right? We want clean, reliable, cheap and net zero. The energy company, it's a race. The energy company that gets there first
43:21 wins PQT has a plan to be net zero in three years. I don't care now not to put it into perspective our peers are estimating twenty to thirty years wrote we're going to be able to do it in three and
43:34 it's not to just show how quick we can do stuff but it's really to highlight how fast we can evolve to the changing requirements right it used to be just cheap reliable and clean now we got net zero
43:48 and we're well on our way due to do that right and so those those are a couple of things we think about Icky T E S G and some of the forward thinking and really where we're at almost leaps and bounds
43:59 above some of our peers but I will say it starts at the top right it starts with respected senior leadership and a lot of these ideas and concepts really come out of that that executive teams I've
44:10 been real proud to work for that team and and really kind of help execute some of their strategy on that Yesterday Front Sensor Net zero in three years that's a that's a that's challenge lofty first
44:23 there's a lot of work goes into the calculation but with all the compressors and everything else you guys have out on locations and pipes and all that how are you going to achieve that Yeah so that's
44:36 a great question so do most of the time you'd think oh Yeah you've got compressors what about my FRAC crews what AM I drill rigs all that stuff up yet those are emitters but they're nothing compared
44:47 to our pneumatic devices right that's the needle mover and that's where our focus is right now on the other side of it is what we call our corporate venture side corporate ventures we've been pretty
44:56 active and kind of talking about what we're going to do there are some really cool projects around hydrogen and real cool projects about carbon capture so there is some tangible projects that for us
45:08 need to be sustainable and sustainable means profitable alright so we've got a few things that align with that net zero to help us kind of mitigate that carbon component and our carbon footprint while
45:21 making money for our stakeholders as well so that's in general How We're doing it with a pneumatic devices and some of our corporate ventures that we've got going on right now so it's very exciting
45:31 the digital walkout has went up there and did a documentary we're told me you brought with the farmers is that strategy and that part of the strategy I don't think so I don't think I kind of talking
45:44 about cow and cow manure Yeah I know I don't know if that's honor on our docket for for corporate ventures most of it right now has been kind of around the hydrogen and carbon capture side of things
45:56 but it's an interesting concept I feel like I read as it is chevron or oxy let's doing something with that where companies are doing it might just I don't want to drug my brother's company but that's
46:07 what he does is recycle we we joke that he recycles cow farts
46:14 and that puts the they'd have a big clean -up pipe it to have a filling station in a natural gas filling station it's Impressive I I don't know about that one I'd I'd have to follow up with that but I
46:26 dunno if that one's hit our radar yet that's the next phase so as I Space I really appreciate you coming on today Sir I think you have a great deal of Passion I think you are a great representative of
46:38 your organization's brand and tim we've talked about this before too like I want to find more women in the industry that that we can show and and sort of showcase on this pod because because people
46:50 like Sarah like you're a you're you're a shining example for younger women that may want to get into the space in what's you know really kind of like a testosterone filled male dominated industry what
47:01 advice would you have for yourself like twenty years ago or to a young woman that's looking to get into oil or gas right now Oh man I get asked that get asked that question a lot and I think it
47:13 changes every year depending on what's going on I think right now advice to give and invest in yourself I may make sure that your kind of surround yourself with good like minded individuals right so
47:30 folks that it may be are aligned with stem science engineering you're kind of stay focused on that and then find some good mentors you know I I I didn't I didn't get here in where I'm at today Alone I
47:45 had a whole support system to do it I've got a couple great female mentors that also had gotten to certain levels in the organization that I rely on as like A I like a personal board of directors
47:59 somewhat unusual sounding board on with with career and ideas and have that that has been really beneficial one of them I actually kind of call her my Fairy Godmother a little bit just because we've
48:11 actually never worked together I met her through an event but she's someone that I kind of rely on for professional advice so having that good network that good personal board of directors has been
48:21 really helpful for me certainly as a woman and in a male dominated industry you know but I've I've never actually felt that and I know people say oh you know Sarah you're the only you're the only one
48:33 over there doing this or not many women and I Guess I know I don't really see it that way I just see US as all engineers and scientists cause that's the kind of Division I run and we have got a good
48:43 mix of folks on there both in backgrounds and in male and female so I never really saw it that way but I guess for free a young woman coming in and invest in yourself and get that good network of like
48:55 minded folks and I think those two together can be a real powerful for you you know that's that's Awesome well Sir this is fantastic where can people find you I know you're somewhat active on Linkedin
49:07 is that the best place for people to kind of follow you Yeah I think so Yeah I've definitely gotten a little more active on Linkedin certainly as we start to the the you know with the Unleash U S LNG
49:18 campaign and one of the really the largest great initiative on the planet it's important for people to understand the facts there's that there's a great white paper out there that we put out full of
49:28 information a lot of it comes from the E A and making it relevant for us and and and the US and then thinking about it from a global and a holistic perspective what that looks like but most of that
49:39 Yeah you can just find me on Linkedin Sarah Fenton probably search Surf entity QT probably
49:45 bring you in as the new spokesperson for Duty because I say what I want to put an application and you know what we're always looking for the best and brightest it's a veteran with Fenton Dot Com I
49:59 Love It Thank you Sarah now this has been Great Guys appreciate you having Me on
