American Oil and Gas Reporter - September 2022 - 42

Energy Summit Gives Landscape View
DENVER-A half-dozen informative
panel discussions and a pair of opportunities
to mingle with state regulators
and elected officials highlighted the
Colorado Oil & Gas Association's Energy
Summit.
This year's event brought together a
variety of speakers examining topics that
ranged from the traditional to the contemporary.
Colorado's oil and gas industry
has changed significantly in the three
years since state lawmakers passed SB181,
a mandate to prioritize health, safety
and the environment over resource production,
numerous presenters acknowledged.
Their various perspectives offered
assessments of the sea change in Colorado's
regulatory waters and for many,
provided a firsthand look at the industry's
new challenges.
Nevertheless, many speakers remarked
on operators' tremendous progress in cutting
emissions, which prompted repeated
references to Colorado as producing the
" cleanest gas molecule in the world. "
The opening session focused on innovation
and technology and featured
executives from Occidental Petroleum,
PDC Energy, Baker Hughes and Enverus.
The capstone session included
an all-of-the-above discussion of gridscale
energy sources supplying America
today. In between, topics ranged from
global impacts on price and supply to
leadership techniques for both leveraging
diversity as a means of strengthening
organizations and for recognizing pending
impacts of environmental, social
and governance policies.
The Energy Summit also included a
pair of awards. The 2022 Fred Julander
Lifetime Achievement award went to Jim
Cole, partner and owner of Colorado
Legislative Strategies. For more than four
decades, Cole's firm has provided COGA
and Colorado oil and gas companies with
durable, effective government relations
that combined public policy strategies
with advocacy and innovation, the association
says.
COGA's other award recognizes an
emerging leader among its members. This
year's award went to Kait Schwartz, manager
of government affairs and policy at
PDC Energy. Schwartz was honored for
her diligence, strategic thinking, integrity
and mentoring leadership.
❒
TOP LEFT: Celebrating the
announcement of Kait
Schwartz, manager of government
affairs and policy
at PDC Energy, as winner
of the 2022 COGA Emerging
Leader Award are, from
left, her stepfather Robert
Roane, mother Dayna
Roane, Schwartz, Representative
Ken Buck, R-Co.,
and Weld County Commissioner
Perry Buck. TOP
RIGHT: Pausing amid the
presentation of the 2022
Fred Julander Lifetime
Achievement Award are,
from left, Andrew Wood,
general counsel at Colorado
Legislative Strategies;
award-winner Jim
Cole, CLS partner and owner;
and Garin Vorthmann,
CLS government affairs
specialist and partner.
LEFT: The final panel at the
COGA Energy Summit offers
perspectives on today's energy landscape with, from left, Will Brown, vice president-commercial at Kinder Morgan; Mike Kruger,
chief executive officer at Colorado Solar and Storage Association; Katy Gil, director of nuclear affairs at Arizona Public Service; and
Bethany Frink, regional development supervisor at Trinity Consultants.
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American Oil and Gas Reporter - September 2022

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