Quick Search:    advanced search

GSW Home   GeoRef Home   My GSW Alerts   Contact GSW   About GSW   Journals List   Help

This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Submit a response Alert me when this article is cited Alert me when eLetters are posted Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Proubasta, D. Search for Related Content

Alf Klaveness

associate editor, TLE

Based on interviews conducted by Alvin Clement and Stephanie Hrabar (for the Oral History Collection of the University of North Texas), and Dolores Proubasta (for TLE).

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.

Only a feat of reductionism would lead one to believe that a colossal event like the OTC could spawn from one person's idea. But so it has been with most great shows on earth, and the Offshore Technology Conference is no exception. Before it materialized in Houston every May, OTC first took form in the mind of Alf Klaveness—who conceived and ensured the existence of this multidiscipline forum for the oil and gas industry worldwide.

Petroleum engineer by training and geophysicist by practice, he foresaw that the growing complexity of the oil industry, particularly offshore, would require multiple professions, trades, and industries working in unison. This perception led him to propose, at the 1961 meeting of the Society of Petroleum Engineers in Houston, a meeting that would bring, under one roof, engineering, geosciences, and all knowledge and things upstream. It took a few years to persuade SPE to commit $4000 to a "mixed" event in an age of specialization. And the reluctance was not lessened by serious doubts that such a meeting would pay for itself.

OTC made its debut in 1969. No one, not even Klaveness, could have imagined that it would double the initial investment on the spot, nor the gargantuan proportions OTC would eventually achieve—more than 100 000 registrants in the boom of the early 1980s. Although attendance plummeted during the recession years—in sync with the number of active seismic crews and drilling rigs—to about 25 000, the number of visitors has since been swelling steadily and surpassed 45 000 last year.

Since its launching, Klaveness has served as chairman of various committees, becoming an OTC icon for his roles as founder, supporter, and promoter of the spirit of the conference. Furthermore, he is supremely identified with the "offshore" part of OTC in a way that transcends . . . [Full Text of this Article]