TWA Features: Meet Your Mentors

If you are a Young Professional (YP) or student and are looking for guidance in setting and reaching your professional goals, an excellent resource is the SPE eMentoring Program. For students, mentors can provide academic and career direction. YPs can receive guidance on how to orient their career progression and diversify their skill sets to speed up their career growth. YPs also have the opportunity to serve as mentors to students. With an online approach, this program helps mentees benefit from the knowledge of experienced professionals from around the world, irrespective of the distances that might separate a mentor and mentee (Gill and de Almeida 2016).

This article features information about some of the mentors who are currently accepting mentees and their reasons for participating in the program. This also provides an opportunity to thank all of the volunteer SPE mentors for their time, effort, and enthusiasm in encouraging the development of young engineers in the industry.

To learn more about these mentors and to find matches tailored to your profile, visit the SPE eMentoring website. There are more than 300 mentee positions available in all technical areas of interests, including Drilling; Completions; Health, Safety, Security, Environment, and Social Responsibility; Management and Information; Projects, Facilities, and Construction; Production and Operations; and Reservoir Description and Dynamics.

Mentors Speak: Why I Want to Be a Mentor?

Anil Wadhwa, USA

Areas of expertise: Management and Information, and Drilling and Completions

I started my career as a drilling engineer and have worked internationally in a variety of roles including oilfield services, product development, project management, and information technology. It has been a wonderful journey and I would like to share some of these experiences with millennials. My past 5 years in the real-time remote operations business have been quite eventful and have strengthened my conviction that the digital oilfield concept is here to stay. I believe the next generation should be exposed to the immense possibilities and associated challenges.

Dipika Kataky, UAE

Areas of expertise: Reservoir description and dynamics

I have always extended full support and assistance to all my colleagues and have also demonstrated leadership ability by counseling those reporting to me. My support and guidance to the juniors has been a great help in achieving my company’s goal and objective. My long-term goal is to educate others and spur interest in petroleum geology. The mentoring role would encompass these goals as well as allow me to maintain a successful presence in the field. I feel that this program would not only be interesting and rewarding, but will allow me to share my experience and knowledge.               

Quirinius Van Dorp, The Netherlands

Areas of expertise: Production and Operations and Reservoir Description and Dynamics                                           

Anyone seeking a mentor in the SPE community should find one. As the chairperson for the SPE Netherlands Section, I am committed to supporting the sharing of knowledge and aim to help where I can. In addition, even a good mentor can at times become the mentee. We all need to strive to maintain our personal development.

Mykhailo Fyk, Ukraine

Areas of expertise: Production and Operations, and Projects, Facilities, and Construction

My undergraduate and graduate students have more communication in professional networks. I became a mentor so that they better understand the importance of constant communication with professionals. It does not matter to me where to teach the young people, but the approach should be from different sides.

Heikki Jutila, UK

Areas of expertise: Reservoir Description and Dynamics, and Management and Information

I enjoy mentoring young people and sharing my experiences. I tend to be somewhat challenging but my mentees are still talking to me and they are doing great work.

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How are the matches made? Both mentors and mentees begin the process by completing a profile. Registered mentees can search by a variety of criteria, such as area of expertise, type of company, gender preference, and country. The eMentoring system will display a list of available mentors who closely meet the mentees requirements. After carefully reviewing the mentor profiles, the mentee will submit a request to the mentor of his/her choice. The mentor will receive a notification via email with a link that will allow him/her to log into the system to access the mentee’s profile and review the "Mentor Request." The mentor will be able to respond by accepting or rejecting the request within 14 days.