The idea of the Pacific Section AAPG was born in San Francisco through a conversation between Earl Gaylord and noteworthy geologists Roy Collom, Joseph Alexander Taff, and the Gester bothers. Southern California was the intended location for the start of the new organization and Frank Hudson was recruited to promote the idea among locals and was appointed as temporary chairman at the new organization’s Los Angeles meeting in September of 1924. Over the next 100 years, the Pacific Section would pull together at least 14 geological societies, and sanction +5,000 collaborations in the form of annual Section or monthly Society meetings, fieldtrips, seminars, and short courses, in addition to several national AAPG meetings hosted by the Pacific Section along with sister society partnerships. The friendships established, on top of the education and knowledge transfer amongst members, enabled by the Society, certainly aided directly and indirectly in the discovery and development of a significant portion of the oil and gas resource of California. Through a formidable and growing publication collection, an invaluable networking apparatus, and zealous officers and members throughout the decades who volunteered their time and talent, the Pacific Section has proved to be integral to the past and present flourishing of geoscience on the West Coast.
Dan Steward, a native of Taft, California and alumni of CSU, Bakersfield (BS & MS Geology) and Rice University (MBA), is the current president of the Pacific Section of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists and president of the LABGS since 2022. Dan currently runs Iron Horse Consulting from their home in Corona, California, with a focus on subsurface stratigraphic characterization in support of groundwater-related projects. His remaining available time is divided between the family real estate businesses, their four college-age daughters’ goings-on, volunteering with the Section and Society, hitting the mountain bike trails, pursuing intriguing geological phenomenon that he never had time for, both surface and subsurface, and enjoying the company of family and friends far and wide. In his 26-year professional career, Dan worked for Arco Exploration, Chevron (both in Bakersfield); Noble Energy, Lukoil International, Total, Iron Horse Energy LLC, and Amplify Energy (Houston & Long Beach). These experiences covered the San Joaquin Basin (SJB), the Los Angeles Basin, the deepwater Gulf of Mexico (U.S. & Mexican areas), the west African margin (Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Sierra Leone, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana) , the Black Sea (Romania), the Barents Sea (Norway), and various proved-developed-producing pursuits in the Salinas Basin, on the Permian Shelf of eastern basin by the same name, and the SJB. Dan and his wife Sandra and three of their four daughters relocated to California from The Woodlands, Texas in 2019 and remain extremely happy to be back in their home state.
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