Technical Events: By any measure, this has been a very successful year in terms of the technical
presentations that have been organized under the auspices of your 1st VP, Bill Fahmy and his
committees. The “same talk – two locations” for the monthly Technical lunch was continued this
year. We had the chance to listen to high quality papers on topics ranging from “Listening
to Fractures” to “4D” - all of this despite a cancellation due to Hurricane Ike. I want to thank all of
the speakers who graciously gave their talks two days in a row. As tradition would have it, the
out going 1st VP has already lined up speakers for the Fall schedule. Watch your newsletter and
the website for announcements.The monthly Tech Breakfast has also been a resounding success. It has been common to see 60  to 80 geoscientists gathered at 7 AM on the second Wednesday of the month to see a series of  very informative talks. The series has been loosely built around case histories, subsalt work in deep waters and prestack depth migration techniques. We have Marvin Taylor to thank for this and he assures me that he will continue his stellar efforts in the coming year.

The Spring Symposium and the DISC are our marquee events. The Spring Symposium this year
was themed on New Acquisition Techniques and the processing challenges and improvements
they have engendered. The Symposium was also an opportunity for our industry to honor
Dr. Frank Levin’s contributions to Geophysics during his career at Exxon and later at Western
Geophysical. Bob Wegner chaired the organizing committee and reported on the symposium in the
most recent GSH newsletter.

By the time you read this we will also have hosted the SEG DISC and provided another chance
to build our technical knowledge. Over one hundred attendees were there to listen to Dr. Patrick Corbett’s course on Geoengineering.

Our special interest groups (SIG’s) have continued to provide another outlet for those with specialized  interests in Data Processing, Rock Physics, Potential Fields and Multi-Component technologies.As one fervent attendee at many of these events commented to me, one could go to a half dozen  technical presentation every month just from the GSH!

Social Events: The main social events of the year – Golf, Sporting Clays, Fishing Tournament
and now Tennis continue to attract many participants. These events not only give us an opportunity
to relax with fellow doodlebuggers but also provide some additional funding for the technical
events as well as our annual contribution to SEG scholarships. This source of revenue allows us to
keep the prices for the technical events to a minimum.

Sponsors: In this difficult financial climate we have received substantial support fromcompanies large and small that have stepped up and contributed necessary funds to hold our events and keep a lid
on costs to the participants. We certainly want to thank them and hope that they will continue to
support the GSH in the future.

Outreach: This year we again participated in Geoscience Day. This event is aimed at new people
coming into the industry and exposes them to many geophysical techniques in acquisition, processing  and interpretation. The GSH was also a very visible participant at the annual High School Science  fair where we not only provided judges for the projects but also had a booth with information on  geoscience careers. The GSH gave three monetary awards to deserving high school students.

Initiatives: A major initiative that was approved this year was the (much needed) revamping of the
website. This will have to continue under next year’s board – fortunately, Glenn Bear, who will be
returning as Editor, has been involved in setting the criteria that we feel will make the site more
user friendly and welcoming to our membership as well as interested observers.

There are many other society activities but space does not allow me to do them all justice. All of
them require your active participation and I hope you will also encourage fellow workers to join
in the fun. The GSH provides a great platform to inform, educate and help explain our profession
so that we can attract the next generation of explorationists to this great undertaking.