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Episode 7: What ASGMT Offers for Measurement Professionals with Carvel Jasmin

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Description

This month’s Oil & Gas Measurement Podcast episode features Carvel Jasmin, the Director of Sales for the Natural Gas Industry at Hobré, discussing the American School of Gas Measurement Technology (ASGMT).

In this month’s episode, you will learn about ASMGT, why the school was established, what courses they provide, and how they are voluntarily run. Weldon and Carvel also touch on other similar volunteer-run oil and gas measurement schools available throughout North America.

ASGMT for Measurement Professionals: Show Notes, Links, and Insider Terms

  • Carvel Jasmin is the Director of Sales for the Natural Gas Industry at Hobré. Connect with him on LinkedIn.
    • Hobré is a worldwide leader in the design, manufacturing, marketing, and maintenance of online analyzers and sampling solutions. Since 1978, Hobré has focused on continuous process improvements for its customers in the oil, gas, (petro)chemical, steel, power generation, metal recycling & refining, renewables, food, beverages and pharma industries.
  • ASGMT (American School of Gas Measurement Technology) is the largest gas measurement school in the United States that is devoted to natural gas measurement, pressure regulation, flow control, and other measurement related arenas. It is divided into seven main subject groups: Fundamental Measurement, Gas Quality, Distribution, General and Advanced Measurement, Transmission, Office Procedures and Accounting, and Hands-On training.
  • ISHM (International School for Hydrocarbon Measurement) provides instruction in both technical and non-technical subjects for personnel in the industry. In this way, problems that pertain to the measurement, control, and handling of both gaseous and liquid hydrocarbons may be studied so that useful and accurate information can be developed and published for the benefit of the public in general. The data and information found in the school classrooms and in the published proceedings provides great value to all who are engaged in this phase of the industry.
  • GCGMS (Gulf Coast Gas Measurement Society) was founded in Houston in 1963. The society put together a measurement school in 1966, which became ASGMT.  The society remains active, supporting industry professionals and assisting those interested in joining the industry through the E. Loy Upp scholarship program.
  • RMMS (Rocky Mountain Measurement Society) is based in Loveland, Colorado. RMMS is committed to the advancement of hydrocarbon measurement for the mutual benefit of organizational members, industry, and society.
  • MMS (Midwest Measurement Society) is based in Tulsa, Oklahoma. MMS includes a broad range of natural gas measurement industry professionals that represent producers, gathers, processors, transporters, and distributors, plus equipment manufacturers, suppliers, consultants, and service providers. MMS provides access to timely information for every phase of the business and a neutral forum for information on new product developments.
  • Texas A&M University Kingsville is the academic sponsor of ASGMT, allowing industry professionals to receive Continuing Education Units (CEU) for attending ASGMT lecture and hands-on training.
  • AGA (American Gas Association). Founded in 1918, AGA represents more than 200 local energy companies that deliver clean natural gas throughout the United States. There are more than 76 million residential, commercial, and industrial natural gas customers in the U.S., of which 95 percent receive their gas from AGA members. 
  • API (American Petroleum Institute). Now representing all segments of America’s natural gas and oil industry, API was formed in 1919 as a standards-setting organization and has developed more than 700 standards and recommended practices to enhance operational and environmental safety, efficiency and sustainability. Many of these standards have been incorporated into state and federal regulations and they are also the most widely cited standards by the international regulatory community. For more than 90 years, API has led the development of petroleum, natural gas and petrochemical equipment and operating standards.
  • GPA (GPA Midstream Association) is the primary advocate for a sustainable midstream industry focused on enhancing the viability of natural gas, natural gas liquids, and crude oil. They develop standards, conduct industry research, educate our workforce and improve operational safety. As advocates, GPA works with legislators and regulators to promote a safe and viable midstream industry. 
  • SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) is a system of software and hardware elements that allows industrial organizations to control industrial processes locally or at remote locations, monitor, gather, and process real-time data, directly interact with devices such as sensors, valves, pumps, motors, and more through human-machine interface (HMI) software, and record events into a log file.

Upcoming Measurement Schools in 2022

The following is a listing of similar non-profit schools and short courses for the oil and gas measurement industry, including 2022 dates and locations. Volunteer organizers, instructors, and sponsoring companies all donate their resources and time to support the hard-working men and women in our industry. 

ASGMT for Measurement Professionals: Full Episode Transcript

Weldon Wright:  Welcome to the Oil & Gas Measurement Podcast, sponsored by GCI (Gas Certification Institute), providing training, standard operating procedures, consulting, and field operation software to the oil and gas industry for over 20 years. For more info, go to GasCertification.com. 

[music]

Announcer:  Welcome to the Oil & Gas Measurement Podcast, where measurement professionals, bubba geeks, and gurus share their knowledge, experience, and likely a tall tale or two on measurement topics for the oil and gas industry. Now, your host, Weldon Wright.

Weldon:  Welcome to Episode 7 of the Oil & Gas Measurement Podcast. I have Carvel Jasmin here with me today to talk about ASGMT, the American School of Gas Measurement Technology and what ASGMT has to offer for our industry. Carvel, welcome. Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do over at Hobré.

Carvel Jasmin:  Thank you, Weldon. I am currently the Director of Sales for the Natural Gas Industry at Hobré. I’ve been here for a couple of years. Hobré, as an organization, we analyze the manufacturers. We do everything from C1 to C6+, H2s, Co2, moisture, online measurement in the pipeline under pressures.

The company is based out of the Netherlands. I work for the U.S. office, and there’s a number of us here in the U.S. office. Overall, Hobré has been around as an organization for about 23, 24 years. We have always been in the analytical realm or the analytical world in terms of what we provide to this industry around the world.

Weldon:  Great. Why I asked you here today is because Carvel is the current President of the Board of Directors of ASGMT. Carvel, tell us a little bit about ASGMT, how the board of directors and the general committee operates ASGMT.

Carvel:  I’m going to start or back up a little bit and give you a little bit of history where I came from and how I got involved not only in the industry but with ASGMT in general. I’ve been in oil and gas now for over 40 years. I got my start with tactical exploration and production.

I started on the customer side, as most of us like to say, in the Gulf of Mexico and in the Gulf Coast states. I’ve worked in a lot of different positions there, which go hand in hand with what I see with some of the classes that are involved with ASGMT.

My start was in drilling. I moved to production pipeline. I did some internal consulting when most companies were going to quality. Gas control, flow computers, valves, manifolds, and sampling systems, and then now, analyzers.

Across all of those particular disciplines in our industry, ASGMT provides training on some aspect of every one of them. That’s one of the things that’s pretty interesting about the company. As I said, I started on the customer side, and then I moved to the sales side around 1994/1995.

For my first four or five years, I attended ASGMT as a student. I was working for Texaco. I would come over, and I utilized a lot of the classes, as well as saw a lot of the vendors in terms of the training aspect of what the school had to offer, and what it had to provide.

I headed up the electronic measurement group, so I sent a lot of my technicians to the school, so that they could be trained and come up to speed on a lot of the equipment that we were actually using out there in the field. That’s where my initial start with the schools, with ASGMT came from.

Weldon:  You’ve had your fingers in a whole lot of different parts of our industry, then.

Carvel:  I have.

Weldon:  Kind of like my background, and I also attended ASGMT. I’d have to go back and see when my first time was, but I started out strictly on the utility side, and then moved more into the gas measurement and the control systems. I attended ASGMT several years when I was first making that move also, and learned a lot there. It’s extremely valuable.

I am on the bottom of the totem pole, I guess, on the ASGMT General Committee, but I’m proud to be invited here. I’d like to get you to explain to the folks out there a little bit about how the ASGMT board of directors and committee operates.

Carvel:  Great. If we take a step back, and we all know the school today as ASGMT. If I could pause for a moment, and take us through the history of how it was formed and where it came from.

We know it as American School of Gas Measurement Technology or ASGMT. That’s what the school is known by today. When the school was first started, it was known as the Gulf Coast Measurements Short Course.

It was held in Houston. The first school was held back in October of 1966. It was under the sponsorship of the Gulf Coast Gas Measurement Society, which is still in existence today in the University of Houston. They were co-sponsors, the University of Houston and the Gulf Coast Gas Measurement Society, whether it be the founding aspect of what happens with ASGMT, or at that point, the Gulf Coast Gas Measurement Short Course.

Just a brief history as well, as I said, the first school was held back in 1966. The first meeting was held in 1963. There were a bunch of industry individuals. We list them as our principals or our executive committee. Keep in mind all of these individuals were actually Gulf Coast Measurement Society members.

You had individuals like Howard Gray who was with Tennessee Gas, Hubert Pringle, who was in PanAmerican Petroleum Company, Ken Kirdner, who was with Gas Magazine, was the first secretary of the school. Don Wonder, who’s with Eads Company. Cooper Hayden was with American Meters, and he was the first treasurer of the school.

Bruce Caldwell was with Transwestern Pipeline. E.N. Army Armstrong, who was a consultant, was the first vice president. E. Loy Upp, who was the president and he was with Tennessee Gas. Today, that name is still synonymous with the Gulf Coast Gas Measurement Golf tournament. It’s been named after Loy Upp in his honor.

Bruce Caldwell is another one. He was with Transwestern Gas. Virgil Moore was with Daniels Orifice Fittings. Ralph Clemens, he was with Daniels Orifice Fittings. Then the last individual was Harold Harry Overton, who was a part of the University of Houston.

This literally is the foundation of the people that laid the groundwork for what we know as American School of Gas Measurement Technology today. As I say, it was known as the Gulf Coast Gas Measurement Short Course. It had the University of Houston and the Gulf Coast Gas Measurement Society as the sponsors.

But, following the 1993 short course, the relationship with the University of Houston was terminated, and a relationship and affiliation with Texas A&I University in Kingsville, Texas was started. University of Houston moved out. Texas A&I picked up the slack in terms of having some accreditations for classes and CEUs and those sorts of things. 1973, that relationship started.

1974, the executive committee decided that they were going to vote to have other affiliate organizations participate, because in most cases, our industry in schools of this nature, everybody is moving away from just being a local or regional, moving more into the aspect of being a global organization in terms of not only the US but of the world and looking for more participation coming in from different areas of the country or different areas of the world.

That same year, that’s when the executive committee voted to accept other organizations as affiliates. They also voted on changing the name of the school from the Gas Measurement Short Course to the American School of Gas Measurement Technology.

Weldon:  Pretty rich history there. I know I’ve sat there and looked at the names on the list before, but some of those guys really are the founders of measurement in our industry. I worked years ago for Tennessee Gas. Definitely, Howard was a name that was still thrown around at the time when I was working with Tennessee Gas.

One of the things that’s great about the American School, and there’s a couple other schools, but the majority of the small, the little measurement schools, the smaller one-day training programs, those provide a needed resource in their area.

The thing that ASGMT has is that they’re affiliated with the university. You’re able to offer credits. ISHM is also, a couple of the other larger schools also, that not only brings legitimacy to it. It provides something that’s really valuable to folks that need to maintain continuing education hours also. I think that’s great.

Carvel:  It is.

Weldon:  I know that we want to talk about all the great stuff that ASGMT is doing and what some of the new things coming up for this year are. I’ll get back to this again if you want to later on.

Tell us a little bit about how ASGMT is organized. I don’t think that many folks realize that 100 percent of the effort that goes into ASGMT is all done by volunteers and how those volunteers are organized.

Carvel:  That’s correct. When we looked at the overall organization of what it takes to put a school like this on year after year, and they’ve been doing it for a number of years, it is a volunteer effort.

Everyone that’s involved with this committee or with the board, as you said before, I’m the current board president, but there’s 14 members of the board. They all consist of previous general chairpersons who were in charge of a school for a particular year.

We have seven special advisers. These gentlemen were actually board presidents at one point in their career or in their tenure with the school, and now, they’ve moved on to special advisory roles to just give some guidance.

The current number of members on the general committee is somewhere in the neighborhood of about 54, 55. That’s in flux because we have individuals that come into the committee and move out. Some people move out of the industry with jobs and the changes that we’ve had in the last couple of years.

The general committee is really the driving force behind putting together the school. Those are the individuals that will serve on anywhere from general committee chairperson, to secretary, to treasurer, assistant treasurer, chairman or vice chairman of any of the committees, such as the arrangements, marketing, exhibit, programs, website is just to name a few. 

The board provides direction. As you know, when we decide from a board standpoint of where we go, but if we were not for the individuals that volunteer for a time on the general committees, these individuals also, they not only do a lot of a teach, they are the ones that will go out and look for the speakers or the hands-on participants to do that. They are also the ones that monitor the classes.

As you know, you want to make sure that a program of this nature continues to provide consistency from an educational standpoint. The general committee and the board, we need the feedback of what the speakers are doing, what the students or the participants of the school think about the classes, where we need to go with direction, the changes.

We have a lot of general committee people that literally just volunteer to monitor classes for the number of days that we’re actually in session, so that they can grade the instructor, see how well the class was attended, see what the participation in the class was like, and then just judge the feedback.

Weldon:  Thanks, Carvel. Now, into the meat of what we’re here to talk about. For anyone listening that hasn’t been to ASGMT, or ISHM, or one of the larger schools like this, what ASGMT is, is best described as if you went to a big casino and headed down to the buffet, there’s just about everything you could want to eat there.

ASGMT is that for measurement knowledge. Basically, a huge buffet and a smorgasbord of different classes, some lecture format, some hands-on, with equipment in the exhibitor booths. These are laid out in roughly a series of tracks or of interest. Then there are some specialties within that like the gas flow measurement fundamentals track and the liquids track.

A person will walk in and say, “I’m here to learn about X and follow that track all the way through the school,” or they can just sit back literally hour by hour by hour and say, “I want to learn about H2S analyzers this hour. Next hour, I want to learn about the latest in Coriolis meters.” You can follow that through the entire school.

It’s almost overwhelming the first time you walk into the school to see the vast selection of courses that are offered. How many courses are on the schedule for 2022, Carvel?

Carvel:  Right now, there’s about 140 classes that are on the schedule in 2022, and that’s taking shape and changing a little bit roughly for the next month or two until we finalize the program. We have about 108 exhibitor booth spaces in the exhibit hall.

Just to elaborate a little bit on what you talked about. From details as a school, we do everything, as you said, from fundamentals classes where we just review the basics of measurement and that’s the track and is broken up in that regard.

You may have basics of measurement and operation on principle on temperatures, pressures on voltage, etc. We have classes on troubleshooting, common measurement issues.

If you’re attending and you run into some problem that, from a technician standpoint of someone that’s actually out there in the field, hands-on, and you’re running them some troubleshooting things with different types of manufacturers’ equipment or just with different processes, so there’s a troubleshooting track, there’s reviews of AGA chapters and API chapters and standards changes.

If you want to come to attend and just be brought up to speed on what are the new changes that are happening out there in the industry that would affect you in this particular discipline from an API or AGA standard or any of those. When we talk AGA, we’re talking about the American Gas Association. When we talk about API, of course, that’s the American Petroleum Institute.

We also have GPA, or Gas Processors Association, standards reviews, and we bring you up to speed. There’s a new track – well, not even a track – or a new class offering or presentation offering that was started a few years back where we talk about new product reviews.

In that new product review, it allows a manufacturer that has a new idea in terms of a product, a solution, a software, or something that is new and relevant to the industry to come in and get anywhere from five to seven minutes to present their talk about their particular aspect of what they’re bringing into the industry or what the industry could use as new technology.

As I’ve said, we’ve talked about the exhibitors, the exhibit booths. You have the opportunity there for not only to talk to vendors of the equipment that you’re using on a daily basis.

We all know that you could attend a company training session, but that would be one company. Here, you have a number of different companies, all with equipment in their booth with their salespeople or their technical folks that are there to give you the expertise, and actually give you a review of what’s happening.

A couple of the other things that I missed were, we have flow data. We not only talk about hardware, but we also concentrate on software and the software packages, and the collection data stuff that’s out there in the field.

SCADA systems. We talk about how to set up a good SCADA system. We have people that can teach these classes that actually did that particular work before, or they can give you some design ideas or design criteria.

The SCADA analytical side, of course, which is my side of it, where we’re talking about the H2S/CO2 moistures and quality. Then, of course, the last thing, and we’ve talked about this before in some emails, is the hands-on training.

When you look at what is provided from a hands-on perspective, any of the manufacturers that are signed up to do hands-on at the school will have equipment there that students can assemble, disassemble, inspect, touch, feel, run through the software packages that may be associated with that particular piece of equipment, those sorts of things.

It really is like a hands-on school for that particular manufacturer, but here, you have more than one opportunity to see different manufacturers.

Weldon:  A lot of people, Carvel, have been to trade shows and big exhibits. They see the aisles and aisles and aisles of salesmen drooling over the people walking down the aisles.

One thing to realize here, when we’re talking to the exhibitors that are here at ASGMT, and especially those that are holding hands-on with their product, this is not the newbie salesman that’s been with the company three months. This is the subject-matter experts. The people that design the hardware, the people that write the software.

Those are the people that are here in the booths. Those are the people that are here in the hands-on with their equipment, so you get literally the subject-matter experts. The same thing happens for the lectures in the classrooms that we go to. You have here papers written by the same folks that are helping write our standards.

When we say we have a report on what’s going on with GPA or AGA, that report is coming from the folks that are working on the current changes to standards and updates to standards. The amount of brainpower that ASGMT puts in one convention center at one time is really amazing.

I know that there’s a lot of people in upper management, if they’ve never experienced something like ASGMT firsthand, the thought process is, “I’ve got a new technician that’s been with me about three or four months. I’m going to send them to this school to get them on a fast track.”

They don’t think sending any of their experienced techs, or much less, their managers to something like ASGMT can be a benefit to those people. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Those experienced techs that work all day in, all day out with orifice meters or turbine meters, here’s their chance to learn about, touch, and talk to the experts about Coriolis or ultrasonic meters.

Those managers that stay locked in meetings all day long and don’t have time to keep track of what’s going on with the different standard bodies can, in the course of a couple of days, get updates on what’s going on with each of the standards bodies, and the latest things they need to worry about.

It’s a great environment both for the new guy as well as the seasoned guy, and management.

Carvel:  Well, then, you’re correct, exactly correct on that. I’d like to elaborate on two points that you brought out. First one, in terms of the hands-on, we do something a little bit different at ASGMT where when you go to the exhibit hall or hands-on, it’s not just for a new person coming into it. It’s not a daunting task where you’re afraid to walk up.

We actually have board members on the first two days that are set up to do roving, or what we could consider exhibitors tours or hands-on tours where they take people through to see exactly what is there.

We will select anywhere from 10 to 15 exhibitors per day, and you have several people that will walk around with new students that sign up, so that they can go see the technology, talk to the individuals, and not be afraid to walk up because they think it’s just a sales guy looking to sell them something.

I am involved with a couple of other schools, but that is something that doesn’t happen at a couple of the others. They don’t encourage new individuals to go around and seek out knowledge from the vendor side, or the exhibitor side of the industry.

The second thing that you talked about in terms of when an individual is thinking about, “Should I send my people?” We want to have some seasoned people that are experts. This is an opportunity for them to talk in the network with some new individuals that may be facing some of the same challenges that they faced early on in their career.

They can tell them what not to do, or what to do better, quicker. It’s always good to have the seasoned guy there, not just because they’re coming to learn something, but they’re also coming to pass on some knowledge of things that they’ve done firsthand. That, I have seen when I was a customer, or when I was working for Texaco.

As I said, I learned a lot from some people that were already there that were in a different area – working in Texas, or New Mexico, or someplace else – that were experiencing the same problems that I experienced in the Gulf of Mexico and South Louisiana.

It was a learning experience for me. I have seen it become a learning experience for a lot of the technicians that were on my team, as well as a lot of individuals that I talk to every year at the school.

Weldon:  One thing that you mentioned there, the networking opportunities, it’s always been an amazing networking opportunity, but networking has changed in the last couple of years.

Networking used to mean, “We’re going to give the new guys the opportunity to talk to and meet the principals with the different equipment manufacturers, the guys in the management positions with the big operating companies.” And we’ll find out the one or two people that moved around in the last year also.

Man, in the environment we’ve seen over the last two to three years, with companies coming, companies going, the mergers, the acquisition, it’s almost getting crazy. You need to walk around in a networking event like this fairly often just to keep track of what’s the name on the business card, because people are rotating around so often.

It’s back to that joke, instead of handing out business cards with a blank employee name, it’s like everybody should have their own cards printed out and leave the company blank, and just fill that in as they meet somebody.

Carvel:  We have seen a lot of changes in our industry over the last couple of years.

Weldon:  A lot of crazy changes. What changes are in store for ASGMT this year?

Carvel:  As you mentioned earlier, we started a couple of years ago, and we have a fundamentals track. That basically is a gas measurement fundamentals.

When you’re talking about managers or supervisors, this track is a curriculum that consists of 11 lecture classes that cover specific topics: measurement, natural gas, gas composition, turbine meters, positive displacement meters, orifice meters, and a number of other things.

It’s a structured class. It’s the same track, but the individuals that attend this class – there is an additional charge for the individuals that attend – will have a booklet that will have all of the information, all the presentations from the class.

At the end of the class, unlike the other classes that we give at the school, at the end of this curriculum, there’s actually a test. If you’re sending in a tech, or you’re sending someone from your company there, they will have to test and be proficient, and make sure that they understood and they learned the items that were here.

The individuals that teach that class are all probably within 20 to 25 years or more experience in the industry in their particular discipline whether it’s turbine meters, whether it’s composition, no matter what it is, pressures, temperatures, whatever, we’ve got the best of the best in terms of our instructors.

We do, and we’ve been working on this for the last couple years, and we’re finally going to get a chance maybe this year, if not this year, we’ll roll it out next year. We want to do a liquids track that literally will mirror what we do from a gas measurement perspective. That’s when you talk about the school evolving and the school growing.

We always talk about American School of Gas Measurement Technology. One of the biggest things that we realize is our audience, even the companies that are dealing with gas, are starting more and more to deal with natural gas liquids and the liquid side of it.

That’s one of the things that we want to do as an organization. We weren’t involved to where we get a better feel, and we can actually bring more substance to the industry in terms of our training and development.

Weldon:  Thanks for the information, Carvel. I just want you to wrap back around to saying if you’ve got an opportunity to attend ASGMT or if you’re a manager and you can offer some of your people the opportunity to attend it, you’re not going to find much better use of your training budget, your travel budget than doing that.

I can say that from a history of being in management positions at a number of different companies, and it’s just always a worthwhile way to spend your budget.

Carvel:  Can I throw in one more plug for being involved in the school there?

Weldon:  Sure.

Carvel:  That basically is this. As I said, I got involved, you got involved, as students way back. It’s a volunteer effort, but if anybody that’s interested in being involved in the school, there’s a couple of different ways you can do that.

First, if you attend the school, anybody that you see that’s got an ASGMT shirt on, let them know that you’re interested because we have individuals that are not only from the exhibitor or vendor side, we have a lot of people that are from the industry side as well. It’s a mix, it’s diverse on both sides. Let them know if you’re interested, if you attend.

If you can’t attend and you’re still interested in doing it, there’s an application that you can fill out on the website that will go to the individuals that need to see it. Then they’re compiling the list. That list is brought to the board, and so we know there are individuals that are interested in volunteering and doing that.

Then the biggest thing that I think is, you can’t do one of those, the biggest thing is volunteer to instruct the class to teach because if you have the knowledge and the expertise, the lifeblood of the school is the instruction, the hands-on, or class instruction. If we didn’t have the instructors that volunteer to do what they do every year, then the ASGMT would not exist from a school standpoint.

If you can attend, if you’ve just got some time and you can spare a couple hours out of one day and you want to teach a class, we will be glad to have you. We’ll be glad to have your participation in the school.

Weldon:  Absolutely. We’ve got all to do all we can as an industry to keep the folks out there that have the experience and have the knowledge out in front of the new folks to hand off that information. That’s a really good segway into something I wanted to mention, Carvel.

While the American School of Gas Measurement is probably arguably the largest of the schools here in the US, there are a number of other schools. Regionally, if you can’t afford to have your people travel long distance, be aware and seek out these other schools. We’ll put a list in the show notes.

ISHM, the International School of Hydrocarbon Measurement at Oklahoma City, is one. The Appalachian Gas Measurement Short Course, the Western Gas Measurement Short Course, Corpus Christi Hydrocarbon Measurement School, the Canadian Hydrocarbon Measurement Course, and then some smaller ones like the North Texas Measurement Association’s Day of Training. We’ll put some notes up on those for folks.

On the way out, Carvel, I want to ask that one question that’s always burning on people’s minds. American School of Gas Measurement Technology in Houston in September. August to September, peak of the hurricane season! ISHM, the International School of Hydrocarbon Measurement in Oklahoma City, hey, that’s in May, the biggest tornado season.

Do the boards ever think about getting together and swapping dates?

Carvel:  [laughs] That’s a great question. It’s funny that you asked me that question because I am on the executive committee of ISHM as well. I’ve been there for a number of years. I have set through quite a number of those conversations in both board meetings. Usually, what it comes down to is everybody thinks it would be a great idea.

Over the last couple of years, because you sign contracts with the convention centers and the hotels and all of those sorts of things, it’s usually a three-, four-year commitment. The can gets kicked down the road because whoever is the president or the general chairman at that time usually says, “Well, we can’t do anything for three to four years. We’ll discuss it,” and then somebody signs another contract.

I would be in favor of doing that, because if you’re in Houston, and I have experienced hurricanes because I’ve lived on the Gulf Coast all my life, but I also have attended several ISHM schools and had to go down in the basement in May.

Weldon:  Yup, listen to the tornado sirens. [laughs]

Carvel:  …because of tornados, and they were pretty bad. You’re preaching to the choir there. I would be in favor of making that swap. It’s just that I don’t know if we can ever get some prevailing heads together to think that now would be a good time to make that happen.

If we look at it though, we’ve only missed two American School of Gas Measurement Technology schools over the years. We didn’t have one in 2008 because of Ike, which was a hurricane, so we cancelled it.

Then, the other one is COVID-19. It was 2020. We didn’t have a school because of COVID. When you think of the weather and all of the circumstances, there was only one of them that was really affected by a hurricane. We’ve doubled our percentage because of COVID over the last couple years.

Weldon:  There might be a few people that would argue with you about being affected by the hurricane from the last year, maybe.

Carvel:  [laughs]

Weldon:  We can dream about swapping those schools, just like we can dream about doing away with daylight savings time. It could happen someday. Thanks again for being on the podcast, Carvel, and thanks for telling us about ASGMT, what you all do, and how you do it.

Again, I encourage everybody out there in management supervisor positions in our industry, get your people out to what training they can.

[music]

Weldon:  Measurement knowledge is invaluable. Thanks again, Carvel.

Carvel:  Thank you, Weldon. I appreciate the invite. Have a good day.

Weldon:  Thanks for listening. If you liked our podcast, leave us a review on iTunes, Google, or wherever you get your podcast fixes from. As usual, a full transcript of this podcast will be available at pipelinepodcastnetwork.com.

If you have comments, suggestions, topics, questions, or if you’d be interested in offering yourself up to the microphone as a guest on our podcast, please go to LinkedIn and send me a message or go to pipelinepodcastnetwork.com and fill out the comments page. Thanks again for listening.

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Transcription by CastingWords

Categories: Measurement, Oil & Gas Measurement Podcast

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