The word “Title” has several meanings, 13 total definitions provided by Merriam-Webster to be exact. It can be the name of a book or publication; a name that describes someone’s distinction, rank, or job; the designation as a champion of a particular sport.  In our line of work, a “Title” is a right or claim to the ownership of property, but it goes well beyond that simple definition. 

A compass, legal pad, Allen Scale, and a stack of index cards. That’s what I was equipped with on my first day working as a Landman. And that was really it. I’d brought some transferable skills from my prior experience, but had no formal training, and little knowledge of my role in this exciting industry.

Fall = football, and around the country people are cheering on their favorite teams! From your kiddo’s pee-wee games to Friday night lights, weekends dedicated to your alma mater or favorite pro team, football is in full swing. And with each game, anticipation builds to find out who is the “Best.”

Have you ever taken a kid’s drawing and said, “I can make something with this?” Then you use that drawing as the blueprint and make that vision a reality? That’s basically the job of a survey technician. You know what the surveyors in the field are doing, but there’s a lot more to a survey team than just those working in the field.

Every infrastructure project relies on Environmental assessments to ensure that cultural and natural resources are preserved, and all regulatory compliance measures are met. Your environmental consultant helps you check those boxes, but do you actually know what it takes to get the job done?

What do the following have in common?

A pipeline right of way, an electric transmission line, a producing oil well, a renewable energy solar farm, a petrochemical facility, a carbon sequestration farm, an intrastate highway, and a railroad

If you guessed they all require land to operate, you were correct.

I have had the great privilege of working in Project Management and Project Controls in Canada, the Middle East, South America, and in both the DJ Basin (Colorado) and the Delaware Basin (Texas). My experiences have included engineering firms, industrial construction, and pipeline installation companies as well as with an Oil & Gas operator. One thing I have learned, sometimes the hard way, is that good Project Management requires good Project Controls. One coupled without the other is a potential for poor project execution, cost and schedule overruns, and the development of a project without an understanding of what risks could occur and how best to mitigate them.

My wife is a PGA Golf Professional.  She’s also an adjunct distance-learning teacher at The Yost Household Kindergarten and Middle School for our 6 and 13-year-old’s, but that’s a story to be shared with other parents in the same boat…over one (or three) glasses of wine.   Her career as a golf professional is slightly different from that of the golf pro that runs a country club, who sets up tournaments, merchandises, and schmoozes members.  She chose long ago that her passion was to provide solutions to help golfers become better golfers.  She’s a golf instructor, a golf driving range owner, and the golf coach for the men’s and women’s teams at Fairmont State University in West Virginia, a small Division II school.

Through this strange year of 2020, puzzles seem to have made a serious comeback.  One strategy to complete: identify the outside pieces and build the framework, then fill in the rest.  The outside pieces are the easiest to find and put together.  But you don’t get the full image until you fill in the complicated middle pieces.  What good is a puzzle with just the framework?