When John Bradford, a professor of geophysics at Boise State University, agreed to run for president of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG), he had no idea that by the time the gavel was passed to him the industry would be facing a severe downturn.

“I do have some ideas for the society,” Bradford said, “but I have to say that the list of priorities has changed from when I agreed to run.”

Priority number one, he said, is to keep the society running and keep it sustainable. Bradford said the society went through the budget planning process in May and budgeted for a significant reduction in revenues. “Our major contributors are oil companies, and most of our members work in the oil industry,” he said. “So when they’re hit, that has a hit on our budget as well.”

But it’s not all doom and gloom. The hope is that, through careful planning, SEG won’t have to eliminate any major programs. Bradford also said that the annual meeting in October will give the organization an opportunity to gauge the health of the industry to better plan for 2016.

Already SEG is making concessions for the members who have lost their jobs due to the downturn. Its career center enables members to post their resumes, view current job postings, get advice about networking and career building and get tips from members on how to make the most out of their education and career. Unemployed members also can take advantage of discounts on products and programs.

“We have a dues waiver program for members who have been laid off,” Bradford said. “And unemployed members can get a 50% discount in their registration for the annual meeting.”

New technology
While the mood in the industry is tense, it hasn’t stopped innovation from occurring, and SEG will continue to be a showcase for the latest technological advances. Bradford said that one of his areas of interest is the use of passive seismic sources to image the subsurface. “We’re doing that both in the oil industry and in other areas of applied geophysics, like near-surface geophysics, where we’re looking at groundwater problems or engineering problems,” he said, adding that passive sources can be things like cars driving past or nearby trains. A related area of interest, he said, is microseismic, where the source effort is typically hydraulic fracturing. “We can use that information to characterize the subsurface,” he said.

Another area of interest to Bradford is full waveform inversion (FWI) and the advances that have recently taken place. “The methodology of FWI allows us to make full use of all of the information that’s available in a seismic signal,” he said. “That has been slowly developing over a period of time. It’s getting to a point of maturation at this stage where it’s quite useful, and what we can get out of it is pretty exciting.”

Plans for the future
Despite the downturn, Bradford has ambitious plans for the organization. SEG recently hired a new executive director, and Bradford said it’s time to do some strategic planning.

“Going through a formal strategic planning exercise and getting that in place so that we have a clear direction for the society for the next five to 10 years is probably the No. 1 objective that I have,” he said.

A secondary objective is to grow SEG’s near-surface technical session, which was formed last year. “Getting that group well established and on firm footing for the future is a goal I have,” he said.

Third, Bradford sees a dearth of women in applied geophysics teaching positions. “I’m a geophysics professor in an applied geophysics group, and we have no women faculty in our group,” he said. “While there is a disparity in many science, engineering and mathematics disciplines, applied geophysics is one of the disciplines with the lowest percentage of female professors.

“We have a women’s networking committee, a group that was formed within SEG to promote women’s issues in both industry and academia. One of the things I would really like to do is establish a program to help encourage and support women faculty members in applied geophysics.”

Each SEG president has brought his or her own set of objectives to the office, and this has paid off over the years in a stronger society better able to weather downturns. Bradford said that one of the efforts was to globalize the society’s membership. This resulted in rapid growth up to about 2010, and membership is now stabilized.

Stability also has been enabled by not relying on a single event for the bulk of the revenue. “I’d say probably what has had the most impact on our stability and ability to weather the downturn is the diversification of our revenue portfolio,” he said. “Our primary activity, and what supports most of the SEG programs, is our annual meeting. But we run, both individually and with other organizations, other large meetings around the world, and those help make us less dependent on one single event to have a broader range of sources that we can draw from.”

He added that SEG recently added a second building to its campus in Tulsa, Okla., which is expected to provide a “sustainable and stable source of income” in the future.

Hand-in-hand with the downturn, of course, is the “crew change.” But Bradford doesn’t see it as a major threat to SEG. Many retirees maintain their active memberships, and the society also offers a program for them to get a membership at a reduced rate. Student membership has grown substantially over the years, and one of Bradford’s goals is to get them to convert to professional membership once they enter the workforce.

“We try to attract and maintain these young professionals so that we have the younger generation as a stable and long-term part of our membership,” he said.

In all, Bradford’s message is that SEG is not looking inward trying to survive but is offering its members the continued benefits of a professional society. “We’re feeling the pain that our members are feeling,” he said. “We’re doing what we can to remain stable and continue offering services, and we have programs that are available to assist our recently unemployed members as best we can.”