W. John Lee

John Donnelly, JPT Editor • jdonnelly@spe.org

Editor’s Note: In recognition of SPE’s 50th anniversary this year, JPT is conducting interviews with several Society luminaries about their careers, their relationship with SPE, and the changes they have seen in the oil and gas industry and the Society over the past several decades.

What SPE experience has been the most valuable to you professionally?
The SPE experience most valuable to me professionally has been writing all or part of three textbooks published by SPE. Regardless of whether I deserved a favorable image in the industry or not because of these books, I have found that they have opened doors for me all over the world ever since the first book was published in the early 1980s. For example, as a direct result of my books, I have been invited to speak to and consult with groups—such as SPE local sections, operating companies, and government agencies—all over the world. I continue to be amazed when engineers who have been practicing from one year to 30 years bring copies of one or more of my books for me to autograph when we meet for the first time in places like Billings, Montana; Moscow; Bogota, Colombia; or Bandung, Indonesia.

What SPE experience or honor has been the most valuable to you personally?
The DeGolyer Distinguished Service Medal. To me, providing service to other professionals, especially to students and young engineers, is our single most important task. To have been recognized by my peers as having succeeded, at least in part, is worth far more to me than all the technical recognition that SPE provides.

What are the most significant changes that have occurred in SPE since you joined?
The changes I regard as most significant include internationalization and the development of the electronic SPE. The Society’s primary objectives have been to collect, store, and disseminate information. We do this so much more effectively now, and make it available to so many more people, than when I joined SPE that there is simply no comparison between then and now.

Do you see major differences in petroleum engineering graduates today vs. a decade or two ago?
Today’s petroleum engineering graduates are fundamentally the same as a decade or two ago. Today’s graduates have much stronger skills in information technology and they are much better at multitasking than earlier generations were, although sometimes at the expense of depth of knowledge about the information or methodology they use. However, at the core, I have always found a majority of students to be creative, motivated, and interested in making things around them better.

How successful has SPE been in its 50-year history in meeting the needs of students and young professionals?
SPE has not always shown a great deal of interest in students and young professionals. We have had a limited number of activities, such as regional student paper contests, and we have had standing committees such as Career Guidance, Student Development, and Education and Professionalism that focused on developing better engineers sooner, but these efforts failed to reach a significant fraction of our students and young professionals. Today, there is much more of a deliberate effort to reach students and young professionals.

How did SPE’s approach to this outreach change over the years?
The change started at the top, with SPE Presidents who made explicit efforts to reach all students and young professionals who wanted to be reached. We now have many more special programs, organizations, and even publications directed at these groups. In my opinion, this is going to pay off big time in the future.

What further changes should SPE make to ensure that it continues to meet those needs?
SPE should try to find out why it is still not reaching a significant number of students—perhaps a majority—in a way that will later enhance the students’ professional contributions, and try to reach more of this group. I have particular concerns about how effectively we help students, other than student leaders, outside of North America and Europe.

What do you think are the most important benefits of membership in SPE?
The major benefits are the opportunity to develop helpful networks and the access to the continually enhanced technology disseminated by SPE in publications and meetings. And, for those who are interested, the chance to serve two of the more important causes in the world today: the development of young people and the development of energy resources for future generations.

What do you tell students and young professionals about the value of SPE membership?
I stress the value of networking, access to information, and service. Students and young professionals really receive this message most clearly when an older and grayer SPE member like me takes a few minutes to elaborate on these points. Sure, we say these things in print in SPE publications and we say these words on occasion at meetings, but the message does not seem to connect for many young professionals without the personal or small group conversations. Otherwise, I find it hard to explain the historically low numbers of former SPE student members who move directly into SPE membership after graduation.

Should universities be doing something different to encourage students to study petroleum engineering?
The prices of oil and gas and their ultimate effect on salaries in the industry correlate extremely well with student enrollment at entry levels in colleges and universities. Enrollment will probably drop again when prices and their effect on jobs do not look as attractive as they do today. However, given energy supply/demand imbalances, I do not think that low petroleum engineering enrollment levels are an immediate problem. Instead, the ability of universities to educate the students they have effectively is the immediate challenge.

How should SPE, universities, and industry work together?
They should think long term. We need just as much effort to develop programs to educate and equip young people for service in the industry when oil prices are low as when prices are high and universities cannot meet the demand for students. In good times and bad, we need scholarships and jobs. If they are not there in bad times, then students will not be available in the good times without unacceptable time lags.

The industry would benefit by determining how universities can help with answering both fundamental and applied questions in research—in both good times and bad. SPE is the logical organization to establish needed links between universities and industry. Further, industry, with SPE’s help in coordination, would benefit by ensuring that universities have the best and brightest on their faculties at all times.

Particularly in times like today, with high demand for qualified people, the industry could help by finding ways to help universities partially close the substantial differentials in industrial and university salaries, and thus be able to attract and retain more highly skilled professionals. One possibility could be substantial multiyear salary supplements for professors provided by grants from industry, treated as “forgivable loans.” Selected faculty members could be screened for achievement and potential by committees using rigorous criteria, and awarded the supplements subject to the condition that they remain in teaching for a specified number of years after receiving the first, or last, annual supplement.

Adopted on a large scale, this sort of program would be quite expensive, but the alternative might prove to be even more expensive in the long run: graduates who do not develop the critical thinking skills and technological insights that the industry so clearly needs.

W. John Lee is a professor and holder of the L.F. Peterson Endowed Chair in the Harold Vance Dept. of Petroleum Engineering at Texas A&M U. He became an Honorary Member of SPE in 2001 and received the SPE DeGolyer Distinguished Service Medal in 2004, the Anthony F. Lucas Gold Medal in 2003, and the AIME Mineral Industry Education Award in 2002. Lee received SPE’s John Franklin Carll Award in 1995, Distinguished Service Award in 1992, Reservoir Engineering Award in 1986, and Distin-guished Achievement for Petroleum Engineering Faculty Award in 1982. He was named a Distinguished Member in 1987 and served on the SPE Board of Directors during 1996–99. He also has been an SPE Distinguished Lecturer. Lee was elected to the U.S. Natl. Academy of Engineering in 1993. Known worldwide as an expert in reservoir engineering, he is the author of three textbooks published by SPE: Well Testing, Gas Reservoir Engineering, and Pressure Transient Testing.

After earning BS, MS, and PhD degrees in chemical engineering from Georgia Tech, Lee worked for the Reservoir Studies Div. of Exxon Production Research Co. from 1962 to 1968. He later joined and eventually headed Exxon Co. USA’s major fields study group, where he supervised integrated field studies of Exxon’s largest U.S. reservoirs. He joined Texas A&M U. in 1977. Lee joined S.A. Holditch & Assocs. Inc. in 1980 (while continuing to teach at Texas A&M) and retired as Executive Vice President in 1999.