In the latest edition of our career insights series, we meet up with Alan Jackson, - who currently serves on the Publications committee of the SEG and consults on the side while enjoying his well earned retirement.

Alan received his degrees in Physics and Mathematics from Rice University, and a Masters degree in Astrophysics from the University of Colorado, Boulder. Until his retirement, he spent 36 years working for Shell Oil Company in Houston, Texas. During his career with Shell he worked as a seismic processor, an onshore and offshore interpreter, and spent 10 years at the research lab. He received the designation Subject Matter Expert in AvO and Rock Physics. While at Shell he developed and taught a variety of training classes on geophysical topics, primarily on Quantitative Interpretation.

Here are a few career insights that Alan has to share:

1. What are a few career moments you are most proud of?

My first wildcat well was drilled on 2D data, onshore Michigan, with huge statics corrections. I worked the ties and the depth modeling very hard. As the well was drilling, my intermediate tops were coming in low to prog, by as much as 40 feet (we only had about 100 feet of closure). My manager began to get very nervous. But as we approached the objective, we got closer and closer to prog, until we reached the top of the objective section, one foot low to prog! I will admit that I was lucky, but skill and care were also involved.

On another occasion, a bittersweet moment, we were called in to review a proposed drilling location, so we did a full petrological, petrophysical, rock physics, and quantitative seismic interpretation of an area, and predicted that the desired drilling location would be a dry hole. When we presented our results, we discovered that the team leader and geologist were determined to drill the well, while the rest of the team had pulled us in because they opposed it. We were in the middle of a political firestorm. But we stood by our results and defended them. When the well was drilled, we got the team to sneak the logs to us, and saw that our porosity prediction was perfect - a dry hole. I wrote the whole story up and then presented it at an internal conference where some managers heard it. Karma.

2. How do you push through challenging times in your career, or work/life balance?

I very early on set some boundaries. In 38 years I worked twice on weekends. Unless it truly was necessary, I would not work on a weekend. I also would not stay late unless it was truly necessary. What I found was that no matter how many hours and how many days you worked, no one thanked you for putting in extra time, so long as the important work got done. The key to work/life balance is to learn quickly what is important, and what is not, and focus on getting the important stuff done first. Sometimes I would explicitly ask my manager "what is most important to get done?". They all seemed to really appreciate the opportunity to help me prioritize. That probably reduced their stress level.

3. What habits contribute to your success?

Doing important stuff first, and not waiting until the last minute. Clear, concise reporting of results. And when reporting results, knowing the audience. I would ask around if presenting to someone I didn't know, to find out what they liked to hear, what their focus usually was. With my own management, I would ask "what message do we want to promote?", and build my presentation around that goal. Careful technical work - try very hard to not make assumptions, but base everything on data you can point to. If assumptions are necessary, document them clearly. Document work as it's being done. Capture images, thoughts, and conclusions in the moment so that reporting becomes much easier later on.

4. What's the best piece of advice you'd give to a young professional in this industry today?

Encourage, coach, and trust your teammates. Teach them what you know, ask them to teach you what they know. For young professionals, seek out the white-haired crowd and pick their brains. Even though I am a Geophysicist, I have helped many young Petrophysicists, Geologists, even Reservoir Engineers, because I have seen a lot and while I cannot really do those disciplines, I have worked side-by-side with them long enough that I have picked up a few things you don't get taught in school. Mother nature is very complex, and she delights in providing exceptions to our standard models. Remember too that oil and gas fields are, by their very nature, exceptions. A well drilled at random is very unlikely to be a discovery. We are searching for the oddballs, the unusual, the special case. This is where experience really helps. The more you see, the more you can imagine.

Check out Alan’s Reflection Seismology course on Knowledgette!