The joint PESA / SPE ‘Young Petroleum Professionals Programme’, as the name suggests, is targeted at petroleum professionals of all vocations who commenced their careers within the past 10 years (approximately). SPE has been operating a similar programme, very successfully, in many other parts of the world.

For further details visit http://www.spe.org/spe/jsp/basic/0,,1104_1619894,00.html

The programme attempts to provide a forum where young professionals can meet and discuss the industry and their careers. One primary function is to provide an opportunity to learn from presentations by successful and prominent people in the industry, as we believe the imparting of skills and knowledge by more experienced professionals is integral to career development.

The WA branches of PESA and SPE held their inaugural meeting earlier this year, which proved very popular, having over 80 young professionals attending, on a variety of career paths from 30 different companies around Perth. Due to this early success and the increase in attendance at the second meeting, plus due to feedback supporting the programme, it is intended to hold a meeting, on a Tuesday night, every two or three months at a popular Perth city location. However, as the programme is for the industry’s benefit we expect the programme to develop based on the feedback from attendees and their companies.

The programme is focused on helping and nurturing young professionals by encouraging learning and assisting the flow of technical expertise, management skills, career options etc… throughout the industry. PESA and SPE are seeking a variety of speakers to accomplish this end. The inaugural meeting saw a lively presentation by Shirley McKinnon, a management and leadership skills coach, entitled ‘Managing Your Project Manager’. At the second meeting Agu Kantsler, Director, New Ventures for Woodside. gave an interesting and colourful account of his career and advice for the young professionals. It was attended by 90 people. Other potential talks may include:

• My career and tips for success (by an industry leader ie: the recent talk by Agu Kantsler. Future possible speaker: Eve Howell).
  n How to start your own oil company (by a well known oil company entrepreneur possible speakers: Eric Strietberg and John Begg).
• Further ‘soft skills’ talks (ie: leadership skills etc).
• Technical guru versus management!!, opportunities as a technical director (by a well known technical manager. possible speakers: John Gorter, Jeremy Prosser).
• Accounting/Economics for technical professionals (by a leading consulting firm ie: Deloite, IHS, KPMG etc).
• All suggestions welcome.

PESA and SPE would very much like as many organisations as possible to be involved in this programme and, therefore, if it sounds promising to your company we would like the following:

1. Internal support for the programme, ie: encouragement from management to your young professionals to attend.
2. The submission of potential speakers from your organisation.
3. Any ideas, advise, suggestions etc…

We look forward to hearing from you.

Contacts:

PESA
Aaron Burt, Ph: 08 9324 6116
Email:

SPE
Alex Parks, Ph: 08 9322 5612
Email: