About Me

If there is a single statement that embodies how I see the world and what each of us can achieve, it is this:

"I do not believe in talent. I believe in learning and skill."

Does this mean I believe that some people do not have an innate ability to do certain tasks, perhaps better hand-eye coordination? No. Humanity is made up of a diverse set of people. At a fundamental level, some people are better at some things than others. Is this at odds with my defining statement? No. I believe that even with that in mind, we can learn and we can excel at a skill. Not having innate abilities does not place achievements beyond us.

Born and raised in BC, I made the move east to Calgary in 2001. After spending some time working at SAIT I decided there was a world of missed opportunity and went back to school in my 30s. After achieving a diploma in Exploration Technology, with honours, I was hired by British Petroleum Canada.

At that time BP was working to incorporate GIS into their workflow, and despite limited exposure to ArcGIS during school, I quickly become knowledgeable, working alongside the more experienced GIS users in the company. During the next three years, my skill set grew and I learned more and more about utilizing GIS within the Oil and Gas industry.

After BP I transitioned to Apache Canada where it became apparent that I was no longer one of the people with limited exposure to ArcGIS. Now I was one of the main people working with the software. It became an important part of my workflow integrating data and creating maps for not just geoscience, but across the Canadian division of the company.

Somewhere during this time, SAIT began offering degrees, and one of these was the Applied Bachelor of GIS. It was a field I had worked in or alongside since graduating from the Exploration Technology program, so this degree was right up my alley. I knew it was something I should do. Still I never quite got around to it, that is until 2020.

In 2020 I registered to go back to school and over the course of 2021 I completed 5 of the 10 courses, achieving a GPA of 4.0. During this time I have continued my career in Oil & Gas moving to a Calgary based company when Apache's assets were acqiured by Paramount Resources.

During my time with Paramount I have worked as a geological technologist within the development team providing software support, mapping and data loading and transformations to a multi-disciplinary team of geoscientists. In early 2022, due to my desire to automate and use my coding knowledge into play to simplfiy repetitive tasks, my time was split between the Development team and the Data Analystics Team. Working with the Data Analytics team has been a tremendous learning opportunity working with a team of people that dwarf my analytical skillset.