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Steve Western
Chief Geoscientist at RPS Energy
Professional Background
Steve Western is an exemplary figure in the oil and gas industry, celebrated for his ability to identify and deliver new plays and commercial discoveries across both conventional and unconventional landscapes. His career is marked by a proven track record as a resource assessment and geoscience technology leader. Steve is renowned for his innovative and opportunistic approach, adept at building high-performance teams that not only meet but consistently exceed ambitious business objectives. With a profound focus on high-impact projects, he has a knack for tackling significant technical and commercial challenges, an ability that has positioned him as a pivotal player in various high-stakes environments.
Throughout his impressive career, Steve has honed his expertise in technical and economic evaluation of plays, prospects, and fields that encompass both domestic and international, onshore and offshore environments. His astute understanding of project management principles, coupled with keen competitor analysis and formulation skills, has empowered him to develop robust technical and business strategies that drive success in complex projects. Additionally, he possesses extensive capabilities in portfolio analysis and field development, making him a sought-after expert in the field.
Education and Achievements
Steve's academic background is as impressive as his industry accomplishments. He began his educational journey with a Bachelor’s Degree in Physics from The University of Texas at Arlington, where he laid the theoretical foundation for his future endeavors. His quest for knowledge continued with a Master’s Degree in Geology from Texas Christian University, further enhancing his understanding of geological principles that are critical in the oil and gas industry. Additionally, Steve has pursued an Executive M.B.A at Houston Baptist University, equipping him with the advanced business acumen needed for strategic leadership roles. He also attended classes at the prestigious Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, grounding himself in the latest business management techniques.
Throughout his extensive career, Steve has held various key roles that underline his expertise and leadership qualities. Currently, he serves as the Chief Geoscientist at RPS Energy, where he applies his vast knowledge to lead complex geoscience projects and assessments. Prior to this, he was a Principal Consultant at SWestern Consulting, where he offered expert advice on strategies and technologies in resource exploration.
Steve has also contributed significantly as the Manager of Technical Excellence at EP ENERGY, where he championed the development of high-performance teams. In his capacity as Geoscience Advisor in the Technical Excellence Group at EP ENERGY/El Paso E&P, he played a crucial role in driving innovation and excellence within the organization. Steve’s leadership prowess is further highlighted by his tenure as Senior Vice President of Exploration at Meridian Resources, where he was responsible for navigating the complexities of exploration operations successfully.
His previous experiences include critical roles at well-regarded companies such as ConocoPhillips, Burlington Resources, with which he contributed extensively as Exploration Manager for the Northern Gulf of Mexico and the U.S. Conventional Resources. Steve's responsibilities as the Global Chief Geophysicist and Manager of the Geophysical Technology Group at Burlington Resources saw him steering significant technological advancements, shaping the geophysical landscape of exploration and production.
Steve has also lent his expertise as an Exploration Technical Advisor for Gulf Coast and Deepwater Exploration at Burlington Resources, and in roles such as Geophysical Advisor for Deepwater Gulf of Mexico Exploration at Vastar Resources. Before these pursuits, he made impactful contributions as Exploration Manager for Deepwater Gulf of Mexico at Occidental Oil & Gas and occupied multiple leadership positions at BP Exploration/Standard Oil Production Co. His journey began as a Senior Geophysicist at Gas-Tel and a Petroleum Geophysicist at Amoco Production Co., where he was instrumental in laying the groundwork for his future successes.
Achievements
Steve Western's career is distinguished by several notable achievements. His unique combination of technical skills, business insight, and interpersonal capabilities has powered him to turn struggling asset teams into high-performing units. By leveraging advanced seismic processing and attribute analysis techniques, he has transformed the exploration landscape both conventionally and unconventionally, recognizing the nuances that differentiate one play from another. His contributions have not only changed the course of projects but have also set standards in industry practices that continue to be followed today.
Steve is particularly recognized for his forward momentum in the oil industry, where he has continually sought innovative methods to assess and explore unconventional fields. His leadership in launching successful exploration and technology teams is a testament to his ability to inspire and drive teams towards achieving set goals. He is passionate about finding solutions to pressing technical and business challenges, ensuring that the projects he works on are optimized for success, sustainability, and growth. Steve's role as a mentor and leader in the industry reflects his commitment to fostering talent and supporting the next generation of professionals in the geoscience and energy sectors.
For those interested in connecting with Steve Western, he is accessible via email at swestern3@icloud.com or through his phone at 281-793-7172.
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Clay works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Clay offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
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- Timeline: Shows your relationship history with each contact
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- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
- Home Feed: Displays updates about your network including job changes, news mentions, and birthdays
- Groups: Organizes contacts into meaningful categories
- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Clay is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Clay is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Clay as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Clay offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Clay takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Clay encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Clay work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Clay is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Clay is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Clay is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Clay offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Clay offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Clay for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Clay accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Clay offers extensive integration capabilities. Clay introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Clay supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Clay also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
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Clay makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Clay's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Clay is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Clay stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Clay excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Clay is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Clay offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Clay is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Clay's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Clay has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Clay is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Clay beneficial.
Clay offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Clay offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Clay's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Clay offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Clay focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Clay also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Clay offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Clay isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Clay instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Clay is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Clay can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Clay is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Clay helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Clay's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Clay has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Clay a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Clay's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Clay's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Clay has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Clay's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Clay as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Clay eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.