the beauty of the Western tradition and
it does go back over half a century is
that we are a small campus for that
reason we have a very private college
field for an affordable public
institution and the nice thing about
that is the way we teach geology it
really does have to be one-on-one that
we might have a lab filled with oh 15
students and that's about all we want to
teach because there is so much time of
working with each student to really make
this very complicated technology quite
intuitive to them to them by the time
they graduate the mission of the
petroleum geology program is actually I
would almost call it an academic
adventure that what we're doing is we're
challenging students who are coming into
this traditional geology program and
we're giving them things and problems to
solve that really most students only see
in graduate school to be able to do that
at an undergraduate level is a wonderful
adventure the research in basin analysis
class is a research focused class that
has to do with the broad spectrum of
sedimentary rocks and the way it's
designed is for the students to actually
initiate an independent project they go
out in the field they study a certain
rock unit they all do a different
different project and they write up a
report and and it's essentially
miniature masters thesis the special
thing about being located in Gunnison is
being right here in the Rocky Mountains
especially on the Western Slope we're
very close to several producing oil and
gas basins so we have a lot of pretty
famous oil fields just a couple hour
drive from Gunnison and in conjunction
with that because we're the Rocky
Mountain West we also have outcrop so we
can see the rocks that they're drilling
into exposed at the surface it's a huge
benefit for students but then
we've got this this outdoor laboratory I
mean 10 minutes actually you can walk
behind campus
and you see beautiful examples of things
that that people at other universities
they have to travel hundreds of miles to
see you know we do get to do a lot of
field trips and studying in the field
and in this location there's so many
cool geological things going on you know
there's volcanics here there's mountain
building all different kinds of things
just really close to us curriculum
builds on itself so starting from our
general strong science as well as a
general other sciences outside of
geology chemistry physics and math we have
a very we build a very songs trying to
scientific base a curriculum we offer in
petroleum geology here at Western is
pretty specialized we benefit from
partnering with software companies which provide students the ability to use
industry standard software or they might
not see that until they actually get a
job so they have that experience they've
got this computer component for the
actual petroleum emphasis where they're
learning the software that allows them
to just go to work for a company right
out of graduation in other words they
don't have the companies don't have to
send them to training or any of those
sorts of things they can go sit down and
they can get to work in terms of the the
technical geologic education at Western
I felt well-prepared a lot of field
based learning and practical hands-on
applications of you know software that
the industry uses we have more than a
dozen Western grads that are working
for us right now here at Antero and some
have only been here a year or two but
some are approaching ten years now and
we count on them a lot well of course I
went to Western and got a bachelor's
degree in geology I went on and got a
master's as well I'm CEO I'm still
effectively the chief geologist and
exploration manager and that's been the
key to our success why does it help to
have a geologist or a technical person
running a company like this well it's
being able to judge risk and so when you
see say the top 20 energy companies
virtually all of them are either
geologists or engineers petroleum
geology program has really been made
possible by some key key supporters Paul
Rady conceived in this program I think he
saw that from this great classical
geology foundation we could build
something that really would serve both
society and industry quite well that
with the addition and the appropriate
introduction of this petroleum geology
and geophysics technology to this great
geology program that we would be serving
the future needs of industry as well as
society students are in these companies
now and they are able to actually hire
our students
another rewarding thing about the
Western State Petroleum Geology program
has been that the early graduates really
have sold the program more than I have
they've gone out they've been successful
from day one they have convinced many
employers that they are ready to sit
down and get to work we have high
expectations but we have a lot of help
as well we are here for you we will know
you
I think Western and and specifically the
geology program at Western for somebody
looking at you know what what do I major
in and you know what job am I gonna have
after college
the geology program here is a great
choice it's such a great major I would
really recommend for people to do it it
is challenge you know a lot of hard work
but because you put so much into it you
definitely get a lot out of it yeah I
would definitely recommend for people to
do it and take those beginning geology
classes and get hooked on it
