Speakers & Moderators
Keynote Speakers:
- Dr. Scott W. Tinker, Director, Bureau of Economic Geology, The University of Texas at Austin, and State Geologist of Texas
- Ms. Katherine Lorenz, President and Treasurer of The Cynthia & George Mitchell Foundation
Session Speakers & Moderators:
- Eyal Aronoff, Fuel Freedom Foundation
- Jesse H. Ausubel, Rockefeller University
- Lawrence Bengal, Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission
- Mark Brownstein, Environmental Defense Fund
- John B. Curtis, Colorado School of Mines
- Wendy Harrison, Colorado School of Mines
- Doug Jordan, Southwestern Energy
- Alan Krupnick, Resources for the Future
- David Levinson, University of Minnesota
- Richard Liroff, Investor Environmental Health Network
- Kenneth Medlock, Rice University
- Kitty Milliken, Bureau of Economic Geology, University of Texas
- Richard Nehring, Nehring Associates
- L. Renee Orr, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management
- David Pursell, Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co.
- Randy Randolph, Southern Gas Association
- Berry H. (Nick) Tew, Jr., Geological Survey of Alabama and State Oil and Gas Board of Alabama
Director, Bureau of Economic Geology, The University of Texas at Austin, and State Geologist of Texas, Keynote Speaker
"Natural Gas: Fortune or Folly"
Scott W. Tinker is Director of the Bureau of Economic Geology, the State Geologist of Texas, a professor holding the Allday Endowed Chair and acting Associate Dean of Research in the Jackson School of Geosciences at The University of Texas at Austin, and director of the Advanced Energy Consortium (AEC). He spent 17 years in the oil and gas industry prior to joining UT in 2000. Scott is past President of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG), the Association of American State Geologists, and the Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies. He has been a Distinguished Lecturer for the AAPG and Society of Petroleum Engineers, a Distinguished Ethics Lecturer for the AAPG, and the Geological Society of America (GSA) Halbouty Distinguished Lecturer.
President and Treasurer, The Cynthia & George Mitchell Foundation, Keynote Speaker
“George P. Mitchell: The Power of Individuals to Change the World”
Katherine was elected president and treasurer of the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation in January 2011. In late 2012, Forbes Magazine named Katherine "Ones to Watch" as an up-and-coming face in philanthropy.
Katherine serves on the board of directors of the Environmental Defense Fund, The Philanthropy Workshop (chair), Puente a la Salud Comunitaria, the Endowment for Regional Sustainability Science, Exponent Philanthropy, and the Amaranth Institute.
Katherine is a member of the Global Philanthropists Circle of the Synergos Institute, and sits on the Council on Foundations Committee on Family Philanthropy. She also serves on the National Academies' Roundtable of Science and Technology for Sustainability.
Katherine formerly worked as Deputy Director for the Institute for Philanthropy, whose mission is to increase effective philanthropy in the United Kingdom and internationally.
Prior to that, Katherine lived in Oaxaca, Mexico for almost six years where she co-founded Puente a la Salud Comunitaria, a non-profit organization working to advance food sovereignty in rural Oaxaca state through the integration of amaranth into the diet.
Before founding Puente, she spent two summers living in rural villages in Latin America with the volunteer program Amigos de las Américas and later served on their program committee and as a trustee of the Foundation for Amigos de las Americas.
Katherine is a frequent guest speaker on topics related to environmental sustainability, next generation philanthropy, and non-profit leadership. She holds a B.A. in Economics and Spanish from Davidson College.
Co-Founder, Fuel Freedom Foundation
"Refueling the future with Alcohol Fuels"
Download presentation slides
View presentation on YouTube
Eyal Aronoff was a co-founder of Quest Software, which was sold to Dell for $2.4 billion in 2012. After leaving Quest in 2003, Eyal has started several successful companies in a variety of industries. His current focus is energy, algorithmic trading and autism. Eyal is one of the largest funders of the effort to break the US oil addiction through the foundation he co-founded called Fuel Freedom Foundation. The Fuel Freedom Foundation goal is to break the oil addiction by opening the fuel market to competition both at the dealership and at the pump. Eyal is the producer of PUMP (www.fuelfreedom.org/our-work/initiatives/pump/), a documentary movie that will forever change your attitude about fuel. Eyal is also one of the largest funders of clinical trials for treatments for autism and a supporter of the autism therapy portal Mendability.com –an affordable, home based, sensory enrichment therapy.
Director, Program for the Human Environment, The Rockefeller University
Moderator, Session 2: Forecasts of natural gas demand
Jesse Huntley Ausubel is Director of the Program for the Human Environment at The Rockefeller University in New York City. The program elaborates the technical vision of a large, prosperous society that emits little or nothing harmful and spares large amounts of land and sea for nature. Mr. Ausubel was a main organizer of the first UN World Climate Conference in 1979. He helped develop the concept of “decarbonization” and published the first paper using the word in 1991. From 2006-2010 served as a director of the Electric Power Research Institute and now serves on its Advisory Council.
Director, Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission
Download presentation slides
Lawrence Bengal holds a degree in Geology from the University of Wisconsin and has over 35 years experience in the public and private sector. Mr. Bengal currently serves as Director of the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission and as a Commissioner on the Pollution Control and Ecology Commission.
Mr. Bengal has served as the Governor’s representative for Illinois and currently serves as the Governor’s representative for Arkansas to the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission (IOGCC), where he has served as IOGCC Commission Vice-Chair and Chair of the Environmental Committee and currently serves as Chair of the IOGCC Carbon Capture and Geologic Storage Task Force and Chair of the IOGCC-GWPC State Oil and Gas Regulatory Exchange.
Associate Vice President & Chief Counsel, US Climate & Energy Program, Environmental Defense Fund
"Natural Gas in a Low Carbon Future: Environmental Opportunities & Challenges"
Download presentation slides
View presentation on YouTube
Mark Brownstein is Associate Vice President and Chief Counsel of the U.S. Climate and Energy Program at Environmental Defense Fund. Mark leads EDF’s team on natural gas development and delivery. In addition, he specializes in a variety of utility-related issues including electric grid development and wholesale and retail market design.
Prior to joining EDF, Mark held a variety of business strategy and environmental management positions within Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG), one of the largest electric and gas utility holding companies in the United States.
Mark’s career includes time as an attorney in private environmental practice, an air quality regulator with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, and an aide to a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Mark is a member of the Electric Power Research Institute’s Public Advisory Committee.
Mark holds a J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School, and a B.A. from Vassar College.
Professor Emeritus of Geology and Geological Engineering, Director, Potential Gas Agency, Colorado School of Mines
"U.S. Natural Gas Supply: A View from the Potential Gas Committee"
Download presentation slides
View presentation on YouTube
John B. Curtis is Professor Emeritus of Geology and Geological Engineering and Director, Potential Gas Agency at the Colorado School of Mines. Dr. Curtis has been at the Colorado School of Mines since July 1990. He had 15 years prior experience in the petroleum industry with Texaco, Inc., SAIC, Columbia Gas, and Brown & Ruth Laboratories/Baker-Hughes. He serves on and has chaired several professional society and natural gas industry committees, which previously included the Supply Panel, Research Coordination Council, and the Science and Technology Committee of the Gas Technology Institute (Gas Research Institute). He co-chaired the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) Committee on Unconventional Petroleum Systems from 1999-2004 and is an invited member of the AAPG Committee on Resource Evaluation. He was a Counselor to the Rocky Mountain Association of Geologists from 2002-2004.
Professor of Geology and Geological Engineering, Colorado School of Mines
Moderator, Session 1: Outlook for natural gas supply
Wendy J. Harrison is a tenured Professor of Geology and Geological Engineering at Colorado School of Mines. Her fields of scholarly expertise are in geochemistry and hydrology as well as geoscience education and she has published papers in topics that range from impact shock metamorphism in lunar materials, the formation of gas hydrates and their role in CO2 sequestration, metals uptake by trees in mined lands, and mitigating respiratory quartz dust hazard.
During her career in academia at Colorado School of Mines, she has served as Director of the McBride Honors Program in Public Affairs for Engineers, and Associate Provost and Dean of Undergraduate Studies and Faculty. Dr. Harrison recently completed an appointment at the National Science Foundation as Division Director for Earth Sciences in the Geosciences Directorate. She currently serves as an advisor to the Petroleum Institute, Abu Dhabi and Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan, in the foundation of in-country research and education programs in earth resources. Educated at the University of Manchester, UK, she held a pre-doctoral fellowship at The Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution of Washington and a National Research Council research fellowship at NASA-Johnson Space Center. Her work experience includes 8 years as a senior research geologist for Exxon Production Research Company in Houston, Texas.
Director, HS&E Corporate Environmental Programs, V+ Development Solutions Division, Southwestern Energy Company
"Health, Safety, and Environmental - Building Collaboration and Culture"
Download presentation slides
View presentation on YouTube
Doug Jordan is currently the Director of HS&E Corporate Environmental Programs, V+ Development Solutions Division, a division of Southwestern Energy Company. The mission of V+ Development Solutions is to identify, develop, and implement solutions to the challenges of unconventional resource development that strike an appropriate balance among the environmental, social, and economic impacts of the Company’s activities. He has been with Southwestern Energy since 2009.
Mr. Jordan has over 28 years of HSE experience, including experience as a regulatory agent, consultant, and industry professional. His industry experience is predominately oil and gas-oriented in the production, gathering and processing, and transmission and storage sectors in over 30 states. He is actively engaged in industry trade associations and currently serves as Chair of the Environmental Committee for the Gas Processor Association. He is also currently engaged in the Technical Work Groups associated with several methane measurement and monitoring initiatives. Mr. Jordan graduated from Oklahoma State University in 1985
Senior Fellow and Director, Center for Energy Economics and Policy, Resources for the Future
"The health and environmental impacts of shale gas development: What we know and don't"
Download presentation slides
View presentation on YouTube
Alan Krupnick is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Center for Energy Economics and Policy (CEEP) at Resources for the Future. Krupnick’s research focuses on analyzing environmental and energy issues, in particular, the benefits, costs and design of pollution and energy policies, both in the United States and in developing countries, with an emphasis on China. As head of CEEP, he leads RFF’s research on the risks, regulation and economics associated with shale gas development and has developed a portfolio of research on issues surrounding this newly plentiful fuel.
Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geo- Engineering, University of Minnesota
"Futures of Energy for Transportation"
Download presentation slides
View presentation on YouTube
David Matthew Levinson is an American civil engineer and transportation analyst, currently a professor at the University of Minnesota, where he holds the RP Braun/CTS Chair in Transportation. He has authored or co-authored 4 books, edited 3 collected volumes, and authored or co-authored over 100 peer-reviewed articles on various aspects of transportation He is a founder of the World Society for Transport and Land Use Research. In 1995 he was awarded the Charles Tiebout prize in Regional Science by the Western Regional Science Association, and in 2004, the CUTC-ARTBA New Faculty Award. His travel behavior research was featured in the book Traffic by Tom Vanderbilt.
Founder and Executive Director, Investor Environmental Health Network
Moderator, Session 3: Environmental, health, and safety issues
Dr. Richard Liroff is founder and Executive Director of the Investor Environmental Health Network (www.iehn.org). He earned a Ph.D. in Political Science from Northwestern University and a B.A. in Politics from Brandeis University.
Since 2009 Dr. Liroff has led investor efforts to promote increased disclosure by energy companies on risks from horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing operations in “shale plays”. He is principal author of Extracting the Facts: An Investor Guide to Disclosing Risks From Hydraulic Fracturing Operations. It identifies twelve core management goals, practices to implement them, and indicators for reporting progress. He is also lead author of Disclosing the Facts, a disclosure scorecard based on Extracting the Facts.
James A. Baker III and Susan G. Baker Fellow in Energy and Resource Economics, and Senior Director, Center for Energy Studies, James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, Rice University
"Natural Gas Demand: Outlooks and Implications"
Download presentation slides
View presentation on YouTube
Kenneth B. Medlock III, Ph.D., is the James A. Baker, III, and Susan G. Baker Fellow in Energy and Resource Economics at the Rice University’s Baker Institute and the senior director of the Center for Energy Studies, as well as an adjunct professor and lecturer in the Department of Economics at Rice University. He is a principal in the development of the Rice World Natural Gas Trade Model, aimed at assessing the future of international natural gas trade. He has published numerous scholarly articles in his primary areas of interest: natural gas markets, energy commodity price relationships, gasoline markets, transportation, national oil company behavior, economic development and energy demand, and energy use and the environment.
Senior Research Scientist, Bureau of Economic Geology, Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas at Austin
"Seeing Reservoir Quality at the Appropriate Scale: A Look at Tools for High-resolution Imaging and Our Evolving Understanding of Pore-Scale Processes in Fine-grained Systems"
Download presentation slides
View presentation on YouTube
Kitty Milliken is a Senior Research Scientist at the Bureau of Economic Geology in the Jackson School of Geosciences at the University of Texas at Austin. She received degrees from Vanderbilt University (BA) and the University of Texas at Austin (MA, PhD). Her research concerns the integration of petrographic and analytical methods to decipher the chemical and mechanical histories of sedimentary rocks. Her current focus is on the fine grained sedimentary rocks that host unconventional reservoirs for oil and gas.
President, Nehring Associates
"The Myth of 100 Years of Gas Supply"
Download presentation slides
View presentation on YouTube
Richard Nehring has been President of Nehring Associates since he founded the company in 1983. During this period, he designed the Significant Oil and Gas Fields of the United States Database and its subsequent expansions and directed the initial development and subsequent updates, upgrades, and expansions of the database. Since the initial release of the database in 1985, Mr. Nehring has written more than 20 papers and presentations using the database.
Since 1980, Mr. Nehring has served on numerous professional and scientific committees dealing with oil and gas resource and supply issues, including three National Petroleum Council task groups and four National Research Council Committees. He has been a member of AAPG’s Committee on Resource Evaluation since its founding in 1993 and is chairman of this committee from 2011 to 2014. He was also Chairman and organizer of the AAPG Hedberg Research Conference on Understanding World Oil Resources in November, 2006. Prior to founding Nehring Associates, Mr. Nehring was project director of fossil fuel supply issues for the Energy Policy Program of the Rand Corporation for ten years. His major studies during the period covered giant oil fields and world oil resources, the discovery history and size distribution of U.S. oil and gas fields and their implications for ultimate resources, the heavy oil resources of the United States, and Mexico’s petroleum and U.S. policy.
Chief, Office of Strategic Resources, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, U.S. Department of the Interior
"The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and offshore natural gas resources"
Download presentation slides
Renee Orr has more than 25 years of experience with the Department of the Interior. She is a senior executive on the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management leadership team. As the Chief of the Office of Strategic Resources, Ms. Orr oversees development and implementation of the Nation's offshore oil and gas and marine mineral leasing programs. She also oversees the assessment of offshore oil and gas resources as well as ensuring that the Nation receives fair market value for these valuable assets. She completed the Department of the Interior's Senior Executive Service Candidate Development Program in 2001.
Managing Director, Head of Securities, Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co.
"Natural Gas Thoughts"
Download presentation slides
View presentation on YouTube
Dave Pursell serves as Managing Director and Head of Securities at Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. Dave is responsible for TPH’s analysis of global oil & gas markets, including inventory and price forecasts, supply/demand modeling and rigcount/production relationships. He was past Chairman of the IPAA Supply committee and sits on the Investment Committee of TPH Partners LP, TPH’s private equity division. Dave is a board member of private energy companies Oxane Materials and Unconventional Gas Resources. He was a Founding Partner of Pickering Energy Partners, the predecessor to TPH. Prior to that, he was Director of Upstream Research at Simmons & Company, International and spent eight years as manager of petrophysics at S.A. Holditch & Associates, now a division of Schlumberger. He gained operational experience with ARCO Alaska, Inc., conducting field engineering and operations. He holds a BS and MS in Petroleum Engineering from Texas A&M University.
Vice President, Southern Gas Association
"Politics & Public Opinion: The Natural Gas Conundrum"
Download presentation slides
View presentation on YouTube
On December 1, 2008, Randy joined the Southern Gas Association as a vice president.
After retiring from Cinergy in 2005, Randy formed Double R Associates and began providing energy management advisory services.
From 1997 to 2005, Randy worked in various executive capacities at Cinergy Corp but most recently as VP, Gas Distribution Operations.
In 1995-97, Randy provided independent energy management and natural gas supply and marketing consulting services.
From 1993 to 1995, he served as VP Gas Resources for Transok and was responsible for gas acquisition, marketing, transportation and energy risk management services.
Over 17 years with The Williams Companies, he served in many capacities including President of Williams Energy. During those years he directed the operation of gas pipelines, marketing, natural gas liquids and energy trading.
Randy received BS and BBA degrees from the University of Texas and completed the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School.
State Geologist of Alabama and Oil and Gas Supervisor, Geological Survey of Alabama and State Oil and Gas Board of Alabama
Moderator, Session 4: Drivers of and barriers to natural gas development in North America
Dr. Nick Tew has served as Alabama’s State Geologist and Oil and Gas Supervisor since 2002. In these capacities, he directs the Geological Survey of Alabama and the staff of the State Oil and Gas Board of Alabama. Nick is President of the American Geosciences Institute and he previously served as President of the Association of American State Geologists, Vice-Chairman of the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission, and Chairman of the U.S. Department of the Interior Outer Continental Shelf Policy Committee. He also serves on the National Petroleum Council and is a Fellow in the Geological Society of America.