Interview with 2017 SPE President Janeen Judah

What will be your main goals as SPE president? I have four goals in mind. Guiding SPE through rough seas. My No. 1 goal is to keep SPE on an even keel. It sounds boring and un-ambitious, but we are sailing through rough seas right now. I’ve had people laugh and tell me I picked a great year to be president. I didn’t exactly pick it, but I am one of the best qualified to lead SPE in hard times because I have been so involved in leadership for such a long time. I was vice president of finance on the SPE Board of Directors, director representative of the Gulf Coast North America Region, and chaired both the Gulf Coast and Permian Basin sections. That experience brings a lot to the table when it comes time to make difficult decisions. For a steady hand on the wheel, I am a good person for managing in difficult times. Developing engineers. During my term, you will see an emphasis on people capabilities as part of the Big Crew Change, particularly in developing countries. There is a significant push from governments for operators to develop local staff, and SPE can be part of the solution. I also have a personal soft spot for Latin America, and I am going to try to spend quality time there. Reaching out to women. Another obvious outreach will be to women. I am the first female SPE president in more than a decade, so the latest generation has not seen a woman at the top. Young women in SPE look to me to be an example, so I will make myself accessible and visible to them. I realized years ago that I am an example whether I want to be or not, so I might as well step into those shoes. There are still very few women engineers in the industry—most women in leadership have a geoscience background. Protecting the environment. I also want to emphasize environmental protection through responsible operations. I previously ran Chevron’s Environmental Management Company. We did offshore decommissioning, pipeline removal, handled all the Superfund sites for the company, orphan gas stations, any kind of end-of-life reclamation and dealing with regulators. The issue is doing things right as you operate and setting up your operation with the knowledge that someday you may have to leave there. I have a JPT column already planned for environmental stewardship, so look forward to more on that.