Looking at the second half of the year already quickly rounding on us, I wish to strike a note of gratitude for our members’ generous support of UPA’s recent spate of summer events and the ability to see so many of our members in person, in the flesh, smiling, laughing, and connecting in a way that a virtual meeting renders impossible. We are nearly back to relatively normal, having persevered through the many personal and professional hardships we have weathered, and being around the fine people who work in our industry has been energizing.
In this issue, you’ll read about events that have passed and those events yet to come. We harp on this point a lot, but it bears repeating because it can be so existentially frustrating for those who do the work we do. The oil and natural gas industry is chock full of people who not only do the vital work of finding, developing, transporting and refining the products all of us use on a daily basis, it’s filled with genuinely good, salt-of-the-earth people who always have an eye on how they can make a positive impact in their communities.
The average person’s understanding of our industry frequently begins and ends with the giant signs seen on roadways everywhere broadcasting the cost per gallon of gasoline. What is not seen are our employees unloading literally truckloads of food for our neighbors at the local food pantry or training and retraining our teams on critical safety practices. And people generally don’t see our folks taking in nature’s beauty at our fly fishing event or hitting a few balls at Top Golf, events that raised money for the Endangered Species Mitigation Fund.
If you’re unfamiliar with the Endangered Species Mitigation Fund, their primary objective is “to direct funds toward the protection, conservation and recovery of federally listed species and species of greatest conservation need as identified in the Utah Wildlife Action Plan. Working with partners, our goal is to prevent additional species from being listed under the ESA, and work toward downlisting or delisting species already listed under the ESA.”
What did Vanilla Ice say in his seminal 1990 opus “Ice Ice Baby?” If memory serves: “If there was a problem, yo, I’ll solve it.” He certainly wasn’t writing about the oil and natural gas industry, but we’ve written many times about how this is an industry of problem-solvers. We listen. We adapt. We iterate. We evolve. We stay involved.
We have several events coming up this fall that you’ll also read about in this issue, and as you know intuitively, these events have been conceived with doing the most good for our communities in mind. And I once again feel blessed that we’re all able to come together in person for them. Your energy is infectious, your passion limitless, and your dedication breathtaking.
Thank you for the work you do and for the good you do in your community. People may not understand us, our industry, or our work. But that’s never stopped us from putting our shoulder to the wheel before, and it won’t now.
Enjoy the issue and “check out the hook while (our) DJ revolves it.”
