Awards

William (Bill) Goodway - 2011

CSEG Special Commendation Award Citation for Bill Goodway
Citation by Neil Rutherford

Bill Goodway has a B.Sc. in Geology from the University of London, an M.Sc. in Geophysics from the University of Calgary and has worked for a number of seismic contractors in the United Kingdom and Canada from 1977 to 1985. In 1985 he moved to PanCanadian Petroleum and after working in various capacities including being the team lead of the Seismic Analysis Group Bill became Advisor for Seismic Analysis within the Frontier and New Ventures Group and subsequently the Canadian Ventures and Gas Shales business unit, after the merger of PanCanadian and AEC into EnCana.

In 2010 he ended his career with EnCana to join Apache as Manager of Geophysics and Advisor Senior Staff in the Exploration and Production Technology group. Bill was the SEG's Honorary Lecturer for North America for 2009.

Many in this room, need no reminder of the passion that William or Bill Goodway brings to his career in geophysics. We are keenly aware of Bill's papers and presentations on Mega-Bin 3D and his unique perspectives on AVO analysis using LMR along with discussions on borehole geophysics, anisotropy, and multi-component methods.

But what many people probably do not realize is that Bill's passion for his profession and the CSEG resulted in a significant development in the CSEG that will help ensure that the science of geophysics remains strong in Canada.

In 2001/2002, Bill became the CSEG VP leading to CSEG president in the following year. As VP it was Bill's duty to attend meetings of several CSEG subcommittees. At the U of C Chair in Geophysics committee meeting, Bill sat through a lengthy discussion and heard of the frustration concerning fundraising for the Chair. At one point, I believe it was Brian Russell who made the comment "it sure would be nice if the CSEG had a foundation like the SEG". Bill took that comment to heart and started researching. The following year as CSEG President, he convinced the CSEG executive of the merits and a new committee was struck with the mandate to investigate a CSEG Foundation. Bill remained a contributor to that committee.

It took several years to research the Bylaws, get the Articles of Association and share structure that was acceptable to the CRA and flexible enough to cover the desires of the CSEG. Bill was diligent in recording meeting discussions and liaising with legal counsel to ensure progress. On July 13, 2005 the CSEG Foundation was born and Bill became a proud Director and it's first Secretary. It took another year of negotiating with CRA before charitable status was granted in August 2006.

Then the work started on rolling the CSEG Scholarship Foundation into the CSEG Foundation. In early 2007, the CSEG made a $200.000 dollar contribution and by Sept 2007 the Scholarship fund was rolled in bringing the Foundation Corpus to $525,000. That year the Canadian Distinguished Lecture program was operated by the Foundation as its first administrated program.

Today the CSEG Foundation is a healthy, growing arm of the CSEG with over $750,000 in assets, and with spending on Outreach, CDL, travel grants for students, and scholarships for students across Canada. In 2011, The CSEG Foundation administered or contributed to over $160,000 worth of programs aimed at the promotion of geosciences in Canada.

Bill Goodway took a simple remark at a committee meeting and worked diligently to make the CSEG Foundation a reality. Bill's voice of passion, voice of reason, and voice of determination helped make the Foundation a reality that will have a positive effect on our community for many years to come.