William Ambrose (left) receives the 2018 Rainmaker Award from Mark Shuster.
While the Bureau of Economic Geology serves essential roles as the Geological Survey for the State of Texas and as a research unit in the Jackson School of Geosciences at The University of Texas at Austin, the vast majority of Bureau funding comes from projects sponsored by its many research partners in industry, government, and academia. For that reason, the process of developing funded research is especially important: not only is it key in sustaining existing studies and determining the direction of new research, it also ensures the means by which the Bureau is able to adopt and apply the latest methods and technologies.
Each year, the Bureau’s Rainmakers’ Dinner celebrates those who have generated the greatest amount of funding for sponsored projects. Hosted by acting Bureau director Mark Shuster, this year’s event recognized those who had generated at least $400K in funding in the past year, as well as the many other contributors to program development. William Ambrose, principal investigator of the Bureau’s venerated State of Texas Advanced Resource Recovery (STARR) program, received the 2018 Rainmaker Award as the Bureau’s largest fundraiser. Others recognized for their significant contributions, in order of funding amount, included Scott W. Tinker, Michael H. Young, Brad D. Wolaver, Timothy A. Meckel, Peter H. Hennings, Ramón H. Treviño, Jay P. Kipper, Susan D. Hovorka, Robert G. Loucks, Alexandros Savvaidis, Tongwei Zhang, Katherine D. Romanak, Mohsen Ahmadian, David T. Chapman, William Fairhurst, Jeffrey G. Paine, Todd G. Caldwell, Ian J. Duncan, Edward W. Collins, and Alexander Y. Sun. Also recognized were Amelia Bridges and Gwen Hebert (Grants & Contracts), Steve Ruppel (Sr. Technical Advisor), Mark W. Blount (External & Governmental Affairs), and Executive Assistant Theresa Caillouet.
