_ In September 2025, 2025 SPE President Olivier Houzé, 2024 SPE President Terry Palisch, SPE CEO Simon Seaton, and I provided SPE membership with a message regarding SPE’s Path to Financial Sustainability and the challenges that the Society was facing on various fronts, along with some proposed solutions. In my column this month, I wanted to provide an update on where SPE is with some of these initiatives, as well as future opportunities that we are investigating. First, I am pleased to let you know that SPE is in a much better financial position than it was when that article was published in September. After a strong finish in the 2025 calendar year, along with a better-than-expected first quarter in 2026 due to some events outperforming expectations, revenue streams are stronger than they have been since before the pandemic. As a reminder, approximately 70% of SPE’s revenue comes from events with those proceeds being funneled back into member programs and publications. Additionally, the impacts of many of the cost-cutting measures discussed in the September article are starting to take effect. While we are not out of the woods yet, overall, the projection is much more positive than it was 9 months ago or has been since the pandemic in 2020. All that being said, the conflict in the Middle East is and will continue to have impacts on the Society. As an example, the GOTECH conference was postponed from April 2026 to 29 September–1 October 2026. Other events are continuing forward; however, it is reasonable to expect that attendance and sponsorships will be impacted. SPE continues to monitor these situations and will make decisions as needed and as timely as possible. Additionally, our thoughts continue to be with our members who are impacted by ongoing regional conflicts around the world. SPE underwent an internal reorganization with around a 10% reduction in staffing costs. Additionally, several internal structures were realigned to better serve members and take advantage of ongoing changes and behaviors in the events market space. Many of the other plans outlined in the September article have also been implemented. We will continue to make course corrections as necessary, and SPE’s strategic plan update that is now underway will weigh heavily into those decisions. With all of this as background, I wanted to discuss some more specific items that play into the big picture of SPE’s finances, both currently and likely into the future. Geothermal Energy From Oil + Gas Demonstrated Engineering (GEODE) In 2022, SPE partnered with Project InnerSpace, a sister nonprofit organization, to form the GEODE Consortium. The GEODE Consortium is a collaborative effort to leverage synergies between the oil and natural gas industry and the geothermal industry with a focus on extrapolating oil and gas technologies into the advancement of geothermal energy. The GEODE project is funded by the US Department of Energy’s Office of Geothermal.
Jennifer Miskimins (Mon,) studied this question.