Several young professionals recently received recognition for outstanding accomplishments. The 2004 SPE Young Member Outstanding Service Award was presented to Jennifer Bell, Josh Etkind, and Jay Graham, and Mark Flaum accepted the 2004 SPE Cedric K. Ferguson Medal.
The SPE Young Member Outstanding Service Award (presented at the 2004 SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition) recognizes contributions and leadership in the public and the community, as well as to SPE, the profession, and the industry, by a member under age 36. As 2004–05 President of the Houston area section of the Soc. of Women Engineers, Bell, a J. Ray McDermott Project Manager, serves as a role model for other young women engineers and female students in petroleum engineering. Bell served on several Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) committees and was 2003 Chairperson of the OTC session on flow assurance.
Etkind, a Shell reservoir engineer, was honored for his outstanding achievements and dedication to SPE, the petroleum engineering profession, and the community. Seen as a “driving force” behind many Trans-Pecos and Delta SPE Section activities, Etkind has diligently worked to increase student membership both inside and outside the petroleum engineering colleges. His current work with the SPE Delta Section to combine forces with other petroleum industry organizations, government, K–12 schools, higher academia, and companies with goals to improve the industry image and recruit high-quality workers has been exemplary.
Graham, a Devon Energy Senior Production Engineer, also was recognized for his participation and involvement in SPE activities and in the community. His community service record includes serving on the Cypress Fairbanks Independent School District Superintendent Search Committee, as a volunteer judge in the Texas A&M U. Petroleum Engineering Student Paper Contest, as a youth baseball coach for more than 6 years, and as a volunteer teacher for Junior Achievement at Yates High School in Houston. Graham has been very active on the SPE Gulf Coast Section Board and was an inaugural member of the section’s Emerging Leaders Program. He served as section Scholarship Chairman from 2001 to 2004.
The SPE Cedric K. Ferguson Medal, recognizing significant contributions to the permanent technical literature of the profession written by a member of the Society under age 33, was awarded to Flaum, a professor at Rice U., and coauthors Robert Freedman, Nicholas Heaton, Charles Flaum, and M.D. Hurlimann (all of Schlumberger), and George Hirasaki of Rice U. for SPE paper 87340, “Wettability, Saturation, and Viscosity From NMR Measurements.”