Energy Crue
Welcome to 'Energy Crüe', the podcast that dives deep into the heart of industry innovation, entrepreneurship, and personal growth. I'm your host, JP Warren, and each episode, we embark on a journey to uncover the passions and motivations that fuel industry leaders. We're not just talking business here; we're exploring the personal drives, the triumphs, and the challenges that shape today's pioneers. Alongside these inspiring conversations, I'll be sharing my own story - the battles with imposter syndrome, the pivotal mindset shifts, and the lessons learned throughout my entrepreneurial voyage. As a certified coach, my goal is to empower you, our listeners, to break free from the barriers holding you back. Join me as we navigate both the professional and personal landscapes, learning and growing together with 'Energy Crüe'
Energy Crue
Transforming the Energy Sector: A Dive into Politics, Advocacy and Empowerment with Leslie Beyer
Ever wondered how to navigate the world of politics, energy, and advocacy? Today's guest, Leslie Beyer, reveals her intriguing journey from the heart of West Texas to the corridors of power in Washington D.C, illustrating a career that intertwines with the Bush presidential campaign and advocacy in the energy sector. Leslie vividly paints a picture of a life in the fast lane of politics, complete with hotels, blackberries, and a trail of press in her wake.
From legislative and regulatory advocacy to transforming a 75-year-old energy organization, Leslie has seen it all. She shares impactful strategies on how she brought change to the energy sector, focusing on the importance of understanding the dual sides of advocacy, and the role of CEOs in industry advocacy. Leslie brilliantly navigates the complexities of discussing energy and its future in an emotionally charged environment, highlighting the need for factual data and the balancing of multiple energy sources.
Leslie's tenure in trade associations shines a light on her work promoting and empowering women in the energy industry. Her experience paints a picture of an industry evolving, with new horizons opening for women in the field. Leslie shares her advice to aspiring leaders and advocates, while emphasizing the critical role male allies play in supporting diverse talent. Listen in as we delve into a discussion filled with notable insights from a woman who has left her mark on the world of politics, energy, and advocacy.
All right and welcome everyone to this new energy crew podcast. It's been such a weird weekend, so, like we had a fire at the house, we had the power go out, the internet's out, so we were recording this. This Monday morning, august 28th, we're at the 35 floors up, I think 35 floors up or something like that at the petroleum club of Houston. I want to think everyone in for tuning in to this energy energy crew podcast. You know there's a lot of different podcasts to choose from, but you are tuning into the number one only gas podcast out there per my house, per my wife. So I want to thank everyone for tuning in. This is brought to you by exec crew. Want to check more about elevating your networks, elevating your knowledge and elevating yourself? Be sure to check that out today. And I'm very happy about the, the guests that we have today, this, I feel like this has been a long time coming.
Speaker 1:I think I invited you on the podcast, I think, when I first started energy crew it's been a while it's been a little bit and I think you know your schedule, my schedule just kind of things kind of did not align, and now they are. So, Leslie, welcome to the podcast. Finally, Leslie, for those that that are tuning in, who have not looked at the who's on the on the podcast today, the episode today why don't you introduce yourself real quick for the listeners out there and the viewers?
Speaker 2:Sure, I'm Leslie Byer. I'm the former CEO of energy workforce and technology council. You may kind of go into my background a little bit, because here's the deal.
Speaker 1:I would love to go in the background because I think the energy technology workforce council, I think the what I do know about it it's such a, it's such a cool organization, it's a community of really furthering the conversations. And this may be my take and I may be completely way off base and I apologize I am, but it seems to be such an interesting dynamic. I would love to talk about it more because it seems like it's such a crucial part about being a voice for our industry right, providing education, providing resource and all stuff. So, 100%, I love to talk about that, what you've been doing for the last nine years of your life. But, yeah, let's bring us up to speed before that. What, like, what got you involved in, I guess, in the industry? Where'd you go up? Give us gives the elevator spiel.
Speaker 2:Okay, so I'm from West Texas, I'm from Lubbock.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:I'm heading back out there this weekend for the opening of of Dove hunting season. I started out at Texas Tech, like every good girl from Lubbock does Okay, okay. But I wanted to be a foreign service officer. I was very interested in international affairs and there weren't huge programs like that.
Speaker 1:So from Lubbock, from Lubbock. So what drew you to the international affairs side of the world?
Speaker 2:You know, I my first internship was at the State Department. I've always been interested in foreign policy, so that was really kind of my first love was foreign policies. All I wanted to do, and so I did an internship at State. I lived in Mexico for a little while. I went to language school, transferred to Texas because they had a Latin American Studies program that was fantastic, and when I was at state, I worked at the Mexico desk as an intern.
Speaker 2:So when I graduated from Texas, I worked for Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and I did border and immigration policy for her. So that's how I got started in government affairs.
Speaker 1:So how does one get started? This can maybe obviously a random question, but like is do you have to like whenever you start in something like that, that might be the path that people want to pursue? Is that something where you like align with a candidate or a politician that kind of shares similar views? Or is that something like hey, I just want to make a splash and make a difference in some way? I think it depends.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of people like I spent the bulk of my early career in Washington and there's a lot of people that were there, you know, politically, because ideologically they believed one way or the other. For me, I, what got me there, was my interest in how the United States interacts with other countries. You know, it was less political. Now I became very political once I got there.
Speaker 2:It is impossible not to do but it really was my love for international affairs that started that. So I did border and immigration policy, some banking finance for the senator, and while I was there living and working on Capitol Hill, the governor of Texas started his presidential campaign. So you know those circles the Texas Circle at that time in DC was pretty close and I had some friends that were already working for Governor Bush at the time and interviewed and I got on and I was one of their early hires onto the Bush for President campaign. So I wound up. I spent, you know, a good year and a half. I lived in New Hampshire, I lived in Iowa, traveled with the governor everywhere.
Speaker 1:Okay, so what was that like? Is it kind of like the show VEEP, where it's just like every like you're literally waking up putting out fires? I mean, was that kind of like you got to hit the ground running, you're sleeping, running like everything's like fast paced?
Speaker 2:VEEP was pretty close to the White House experience which I had later. But I would say the campaign experience was 100% like that. I mean we were living on nothing Blackberries, two blackberries yes. And in little hotels. We lived in a residence in New Hampshire for three months. You know, and you get to know, the press corps that's following the governor or the candidate at that time. You get to know them really well. You're just all living together.
Speaker 1:So when you are following that, I mean, is that one of those things where it's like everyone kind of understands their role? Like you know, the press is going to play the press role, you're going to play this role. So people kind of understand the roles and they kind of get along. But once you know the limelight's on, then everyone kind of shifts. They do, and there's attention there 100%.
Speaker 2:So there's the staff and there's the press. The president elect famously. One time when we were in Waco we were playing, because we would spend the summers in Waco at his ranch and we would play baseball Like we had baseball teams against each other. We would go out to the softball fields at Baylor and we had t-shirts that said us versus them. I don't know if you remember that was like a kind of a funny line from President Bush. You know he was talking about us versus them and it was the staff versus the press. There was definitely a us versus them. You know kind of situation. They had a job to do, we had a job to do. But then we were also all really living together for those campaign years and the years of the White House, everyone's got a role to do, right?
Speaker 1:So?
Speaker 2:there was an interesting tension in those relationships for sure. But so I worked on the campaign. Successful campaign, but it wasn't. I don't know if you remember the recount in Florida. It was a contested election. So I lived in Florida, counted the ballots. You know all the pregnant chads, the hanging chads, all of that. I sat across the table from a girl from the Gore campaign every day for I don't know two and a half, three weeks we stared at a ballot box. Older people remember this stuff.
Speaker 2:It was really important but eventually the Secretary of State of Florida verified the election, Catherine Harris verified that President won. We went straight back to DC where I had been living before the campaign because I worked on the Hill and suddenly we were White House staffers and I was at the White House with the President for the next six years.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'm going to pause you on that, because lately I've been really interested in this concept of success. And once you work hard, you put your energy and effort into something. Whether it's a project, whether it's getting someone elected to the President of the United States, whether it's writing a kid's book, the feeling of success and achievement is interesting. So you're on the road, you're working so hard for months and months and months late nights, early mornings, no sleep, a lot of coffee, a lot of this, a lot of that, and now there's a recount, all that stuff, and suddenly now you're actually the success from all the effort. You're in the White House. You're in the White House.
Speaker 1:What was that like, I guess, for you, if you can remember, because for me it's one of those things. Like you know, you work so hard, you work so hard and let's say, you do get this achievement. It doesn't sit. It's like, okay, well, I got to do something else, now I need to, I need to do something. You don't sit with a positive um basket of oh great job, bless, you did good, just enjoy it for a little bit. It seems. It seems to instill some sort of anxiety with me, like I got to do something else now. I got to keep moving forward. So what was that like to you, from hustling nonstop for so long and then kind of seeing the, the, the success?
Speaker 2:of all your efforts. Yeah, what was that like? Well, it was hard. We feel like that election night was certainly stolen from us in a lot of ways. Just because it was so close, it was contested. It wasn't like we had this great election night and we were able to celebrate because we won. We didn't know for weeks if it was going to be us or or if there was going to be a president gore Um. So once it finally happened and we finally came back I mean we started day one because there's the inaugural to plan for the inauguration happens in January, after the election in November, but things weren't certified until early December. We had what? Six weeks?
Speaker 1:to plan massive inauguration so we didn't stop to, you know, do anything, um, but I was in charge of eight different you know multi-thousand person inaugural balls and there's a you know a parade and the swearing in all of that we so you go from a, you go from a level of of of trying to get someone, and the next thing you know it's like okay, well, now I'm over this, this and this, I mean that's kind of, that's a huge battlefield promotion.
Speaker 2:It is huge. And so then, once you have a successful inaugural, then you're immediately you're in the White House and the president has to go start meeting heads of state, and so you're planning and there was no downtime. There was never, ever, ever any downtime. The people not a lot of people realize. You know there's no such thing as sick days or vacation days. There's not like an HR department, you know. You just go hard and that's why the shelf life of a White House staffer is two to three years, maybe.
Speaker 1:Is it just burnout, Like just a lot of people get burnout and it's understandable.
Speaker 2:It is understandable. But you're also 22. Like in those jobs that I was in, we were very young you can't do that. It's hard to do married. It's impossible to do like with children.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was gonna say you don't have any kind. It's young, it's it's right out of college 22, 22, like 25. Yeah, okay, yes, all right.
Speaker 2:And so you know that's fine to do at that point in your life you can do it 100% of everything you have to that and that kind of job. I mean it's less of a job and more of just a life. You build bonds with the people that you are working with. It's not just like your work, friends, like this is your life, and so I mean that was 20 years ago, but those people, I mean those bonds, are strong forever and ever.
Speaker 1:and ever so connections matter.
Speaker 2:Interesting, yes, interesting, yeah, connections matter, networking matters Especially in that environment where, in the role I was in, I was in charge of everything the press did when they were around the president and what the visual image of the president looked like.
Speaker 1:So the pressure that's interesting. That's a lot of like, that's like branding, that's public perception, it's all the branding and that's a lot. And if you screw up.
Speaker 2:It's on the national news.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So the stakes are very, very high in that situation. And then you know you're in all these different countries, you have access to anything you need as a White House staffer, and that's very heady. That's a lot of responsibility for people in the early 20s, yeah.
Speaker 1:I was going to say was there any timeline? And the reason why I plug the whole connection, network and thing is that's kind of what my business based out of. I'm always promoting that people need to network, they need to meet people outside of their bubble. And so it's interesting to hear I love hearing you saying that the relationships I made 20 years ago they're still connected. So, yeah, that's a plug to networking. So it sounds like there's never, never a time to take a break and just like was there? Like did you allow any time? To like, wow, I'm in a different country, I'm traveling with the president, I'm doing this for the United States, and was that ever hits, I mean, the weight of what you were doing?
Speaker 2:Occasionally we would see our families, and I remember my grandmother. She was like are you writing down, are you keeping a journal?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I was like Nana no, I'll remember it all, but I know I've been to 45 countries, at least with the president, and I couldn't even tell you exactly where I've been. Like I wasn't writing any of it down, I was just trying to survive for the next day.
Speaker 1:You kind of wish you did, kind of journal sundown. No seriously.
Speaker 2:And there's things, of course, that I remember, but there is a significant amount of blur that comes with exhaustion and high pressure and, you know, for that sustained amount of time it's a very long time to be in one of those jobs. But my husband at the time was also at the White House, so at least we had that. We would see each other, you know, at work and on the road, and so that was fine. If we weren't married, I probably would have seen him like once a month if we weren't working together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's pretty challenging as well.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:So, okay, so you're working with the president, you're in the White House and all that stuff. What brought you I mean to kind of fast forward your career what was a pivotal moment in your career that kind of brought you into the energy space? What made you interested into the energy environment, if you will?
Speaker 2:So, we spent, you know, both terms of President Bush's administration in the White House.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And then moved. So we were in DC probably 15 years total. Moved back to Texas when we started having kids. So I had three babies in three years.
Speaker 1:Okay, the hard way, right? Okay, I didn't have triplets the hard way.
Speaker 2:I was pregnant for like five consecutive years had our kids and our families were in Texas.
Speaker 1:Okay, makes a lot easier and so yeah, so we moved back, Okay.
Speaker 2:And once we did, my skill set was to operate, you know, at a very high level. I go into a palace in Poland and get 10,000 people and I could do all that. That is not a skill set that works in Houston Texas.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:It's not. You know, it was hard for us to find jobs and that's an interesting thing. That happens to a lot of people when they leave the White House is you have everything at your fingertips, you have access to anything, but that skill set isn't something that really works. You have to discover. You have to start over again at the bottom to get to rise in another industry.
Speaker 1:When did you learn that? I mean, when did that realization come to you?
Speaker 2:It came to me when I watched people that I saw as so successful and so high performing and high functioning. Not everyone was able to do that, because they felt like land their next role because they didn't want to start at the bottom somewhere.
Speaker 1:You know that's interesting. There's a lot of people I mean, obviously it's similar but different, but there's some people that you know they would chase that title. I want to get a VP, I want to get, you know, I want this, I want this, I want this. And then they find themselves kind of in a situation where it's no one like if there are reduction workforce or there is that like, no one really wants this high title flutin. So it is. It's a blessing and a curse sometimes.
Speaker 2:You really had to kind of humble yourself and say, okay, look, you know, get over what you think. You're so important People in. Washington for the White House staff, and this is an interesting story that everyone in Washington experiences. But whoever your boss is, whoever you're working for the minute, they're no longer in power.
Speaker 2:You are also not important it just changes like that, and so I anticipated that it was fine. I had worked my way from the bottom up anyway in the campaign world, so that wasn't hard for me. But some people who had come in at a high level and then operated at a high level were like, well, I'm so important, how am I going to take a low level?
Speaker 1:job.
Speaker 2:And I didn't take a low level job. I started working in, you know, trade associations because I understood, having worked at the State Department and on Capitol Hill and in the White House, and then later in the administration. I took a presidential appointment at HUD, at the Department of Housing, after I left the White House. Okay, just when I started I was just done with the travel.
Speaker 1:Yeah, after six years of being on the road. Yeah, I get it.
Speaker 2:And so I had operated in kind of all areas of government and the next spot was really understanding how advocacy works with corporate America. So that's when I started working in trade associations was helping corporations navigate the federal government.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So my first job was with National Association of Manufacturers, which is a huge trade association in DC.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And I ran the Texas office for them.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And so the Texas office for the NAM is basically all the large EMP companies.
Speaker 1:What is that? Okay, so you know we hear of advocacy. Obviously I'm a huge energy advocate and I think that's kind of the thing. That's. It's not. I don't wake up in the morning, kind of almost go out. It's just kind of one of those things that I have a platform I'm going to, I'm going to do similar to Well, yours is probably more targeted because that's, you know, leaving the White House and all that stuff.
Speaker 1:I feel like advocacy is different on every level, for whether an advocate like you're sitting with your group of friends, or an advocate on you know, like we'll have this platform and have a podcast, I'm going to do this versus being an advocate on a federal level as well, having that relationships with the other government bodies and all that stuff. What is? What is, I guess? What does that look like as an advocate For me, an advocate like you hear it, it's like oh, it's just, you know, you're just putting out the good message, you know. So I think there's a lot more to it. What does that look like? Is there a lot more to it?
Speaker 2:There's a lot there's a lot to it, and there's a reason why most good advocates for any industry also worked in DC at some point, because you have to be able to speak both languages. Okay, members of Congress in DC have to know a little bit about so many things.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:They can't drill down on any particular industry. You have to be able to talk to them about what's important to your industry, to your companies, in a very simple, quick, succinct way. Okay, and you have to have a really specific ask. Look, I need you to do this because it's going to impact these companies in this way and that then impacts your constituents.
Speaker 1:You live to explain it like they're five. You really do.
Speaker 2:And it's the nature of what they do, you know. And then there's that legislative and then there's a whole regulatory piece. So regulatory is what happens in the agencies, for example at EPA or its Department of Energy.
Speaker 2:Okay, and there's primarily the EPA. Doe doesn't have as much to do with our industry as far as regulation, but with the EPA you have to be able to meet with them and have them understand certain things. For me, with my background at the State Department, I worked a lot with state and as they would develop sanctions, for example, on you know whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, whatever.
Speaker 2:We're looking at. They would come to us and say okay, if we do something on this specific technology, how's that going to impact your companies?
Speaker 1:That's kind of fun.
Speaker 2:It's great, because they don't. They're not going to call them up. They can't possibly maintain their relationships. Think about how much executive churn there is at all of our companies. Yeah, so they need to be able to call someone that knows generally what everybody's doing, what their international trade compliance looks like, what they're trying to import and export in terms of technologies, and be able to speak to. Hey, a sanction there, specifically on technology, is really going to impact our ability to do our business.
Speaker 1:So you really need kind of the 60,000 foot view and kind of the way the dots are all connected.
Speaker 2:Right and you have to have those relationships and you have to have relationships of trust.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And you know you can't just be Joe Blow rolling in saying but that's such an interesting I mean saying a relationship of trust.
Speaker 1:I mean I agree completely. I think obviously there's a cornerstone of any sort of relationship. However, you know, in the current environment that we're in, in the current energy conversations that we're having, that you're seeing people have which is unfortunate how do you first off number one how does someone and I think this is kind of an important topic that I've been kind of leaning into lately how does someone become an advocate in this and this environment we're in right now, whether you're dealing with a government or even just kind of sitting around the table with your neighbors? I mean, how does one rise up or be more vocal in that advocacy realm?
Speaker 2:I think anyone can be an advocate, certainly me. I'm not a CEO of a trade association anymore and I can still be an advocate as a working mom, as an independent director, as an advisor certain companies, you know, you talk to your friends, you hear about this, but this is what everyone says, but it really is the most important. When you're at your kid's baseball game and everybody's like, oh my gosh, it's so hot in Houston, these oil and gas companies. And you say, actually no, here's what oil and gas companies provide for us in our daily life. And they say, well, if we just had renewables, it wouldn't be so hot in Houston right now.
Speaker 2:Actually, no, renewables aren't 100% ready to go and global energy demand is growing. There's billions of people in developing countries that don't have access to energy for modern life and what oil, and specifically natural gas, provides is a lower carbon alternative to be able to answer that energy demand that everyone needs to experience modern life and for people in poverty to get to a middle class level. And if you can say that real quick, in any kind of social situation, it makes a wrinkle in someone else's brain.
Speaker 1:It does, it does. I think you touched on a great point. I mean, our industry is filled with so many passionate people, especially when it comes to energy and the energy realities, and it's a challenging situation that we have because a lot of times when we are discussing the realities of energy and where renewables are at and the current scene and the technology capabilities, it's a very emotionally driven conversation. It's well, you're killing kids, you're killing our grandkids, you're gonna raise the temp and the reality is not. So it's very. How do you okay, how does Leslie have a conversation when we have all the data and facts in our industry? Because our industry loves data and facts. We're an engineer's world over here. How do we have a conversation with data and facts and tell a story that pulls the hearts and minds and has a better story than just the hard data?
Speaker 2:I think the way to do that is to pull it up out of where you sit and what you see. This is not a uniquely American problem. This is a global problem. The energy trilemma is a global issue. And what trilemma you hear people talk about how, in order to achieve the right goals that we have for ourselves, moving forward for the future of energy, you have to solve for access, you have to solve for the environment and you have to solve for demand. You have to answer all these things, trilemma like that.
Speaker 2:So, with demand growing, people who sit in Houston and maybe lead an insular life which you don't wanna judge anyone or sit in whatever city in the United States, they understand what they see from where they sit.
Speaker 2:They don't understand that there's so many people that live in poverty and don't have access to energy, and that there's people in these countries that are sitting on deposits of energy that they can use, for example, coal. You're gonna see a lot of countries. We're already seeing so many countries turn to coal because there haven't been we tried to transition too quickly, and that's the thing.
Speaker 1:I'm not just because I'm the only gas space, I'm in the energy space. I mean, there's no way I'm against different sources of energy. How about that? Right?
Speaker 2:one way to diffuse that answer too, when people say, well, you're just against renewables. I'm not against renewables at all, we need them 100%. But there can be no decarbonized future of energy without a growth in nuclear as well. And so when you put that in and when you say, look, we need nuclear, we need more nuclear. And the 93 nuclear power plants in the United States most of them were built in the 70s and 80s we're not using. There's only one construction right now. Those things are obviously very capital intensive and have years to come online.
Speaker 2:That is dense zero emissions energy and so, if you can explain it with energy density, would you, if you had a kale salad for lunch and then you had a steak for lunch, when would you get hungry again? Quickly, like if you had a kale salad? That's renewables. It'll give you energy for a minute, but it's not sustained, it's not dense, it's not there to be, durable as a backstop, and so that's what we're kind of dealing with is understanding.
Speaker 2:Certainly, the current administration wants to pick and choose certain flavors of energy, but it shouldn't be that. We should look at what is the density of each different kind of energy system and how can we reduce emissions on those across the board.
Speaker 1:For me it's. I completely agree with 100% of what you're saying. For me it's a question of you have the two sides of the conversation. It seems to be. The first side is you know, fossil fuels are all bad. We don't see any benefit from them whatsoever, which is again that's again exposed. Open your blinders, open your vision. You know we need to say the world, world, world. However, on the other side of it, what you're talking about is kind of the human flourishing side of it, kind of what you're talking about what Chris Wright talks about, and I'm very drawn towards that side of it because it's not a pro-fossil fuels or anti-renewable or anything like that. It's a pro-humanity conversation and I just love how you're bringing that to the table, people like Chris Wright bringing it to the table. It's a pro-human side of things and it's interesting to have a pro-human side of camp and also a pro-environmental side of camp, which they can be one in the same.
Speaker 2:They can be one in the same and I think that is where we haven't done as good of a job as an industry and really painting that. But when you say it's such almost like a religious fervor for environmentalists to really be against fossil fuels, we can kind of laud the positive attributes of those in a religious fervor way when we talk about humanity and global humanity and growth and how population is increasing in the world and that means that the pie of energy is growing larger and, yes, renewables 100% need to take more of that pie.
Speaker 2:but so does nuclear, and so certainly does natural gas.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's. It's just kind of I get frustrated, obviously when I'm to go down this road. I get frustrated when one source of energy is villainized Like come on, we need it all right now. I don't think we have the luxury to villainize one over the other. Let's just have it all at the table. But let's also not have any false promises, false hope.
Speaker 2:And then getting back to kind of my original love in my heart, how this impacts our geopolitical scene. So our energy security in the United States is damaged when we are not really producing energy at max capacity and when we can and when we can export that energy, it is positive for our standing in the global world with our allies. You know just. I don't even have to say everyone knows what's happening with Russia and Ukraine.
Speaker 2:And you know all of the natural gas that was going to Europe. You know that has created real significant energy security issues across the globe 100%, 100%. Yeah, and those are very, very important. And you can't just say, well, I only care about the environment, you have to also care about access and security.
Speaker 1:But it's also one of those things too, if you're right, energy has. It's such a huge it's not even an elephant in the room because it does matter with everything. It matters with your cost of goods, it matters with how you provide for your family, it matters with everything and all aspects of life. So I guess for people to not to think you know, well, if we just go this route versus this route, is for me it's like, well, if you can want to afford avocados, you want to afford taking your family on a trip, if you want to afford heating your home or cooling your home, I mean it's interesting. I mean I'm at these. You know the crew, these crew club events I host, and you know you have people at the table being like hey, who's in Oklahoma, who's electricity bills higher, who's it? Like you're seeing it kind of fall into every realm of every consumer's life.
Speaker 2:And it impacts consumers, obviously, and it impacts the lowest earning consumers the most significantly. But then it also impacts companies. And you look at the companies in Europe that are trying to continue to manufacture. You know, just last week you saw BASF. They signed an LNG contract, so they are going to be. They are kind of going outside of what the EU has said and we don't want more natural gas to secure their own energy sources. Companies are having to start to do that, even though it's against, maybe, what their government is advising or trying to dictate, but they're having to get into this situation. What's worse, running out of money and not making earnings or, you know, upsetting the government because they want us to completely not have any access to natural gas.
Speaker 2:So there's just a complete new world order in countries that have made decisions to move away from renewables before they have, or to move away from fossil fuels before there's a commercial option.
Speaker 1:It's always like I always say, it's like kind of like jumping in a pool without testing, number one, the temperature of the water, number two, how deep the water is, because we're jumping in all these untested, unproven and getting away from what we what anyway? So let me ask you a question Are you optimistic about the energy conversation? Are you pessimistic about the future? Where are you when it comes to, I guess, the whole conversation, when it comes to energy?
Speaker 2:I'm optimistic about it because I feel like they're starting to become an awareness a little bit that we cannot move on to system B until system A yes, you know we're not ready to make a full transition away from fossil fuels, nor will we ever be, because of the role of fossil fuels in every other energy system. But you see people like Harold Hamm, for example.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:This man has dedicated his life to making sure that people understand what the Shell Revolution in particular but also just natural gas and oil have done for the security of the United States and for the promotion of American people and our allies. Therefore and so I think you know, more and more people are starting to step up. You already mentioned that Chris Wright is such a great advocate. Toby Rice all you see a lot more CEOs that are willing to spend their time and efforts in an external posture, and I think that is actually a part of what energy companies CEOs. They need to have a little bit of that, probably in them now.
Speaker 2:You kind of have to be an advocate.
Speaker 1:I completely agree with you. I think it's been so long in our industry where leadership positions don't really feel like they have to be advocates or they can kind of just skate by. We can just kind of go off the radar. I don't think this. I don't think the current environment or the market that we're in right now. You can't be an advocate for the realities of energy.
Speaker 2:Right. And if you look at the macro, if we look at what's happening not only in the back half of this year, but really without investment, we have not been investing in new sources of energy enough, you know, in new resources.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:There's going to be a demand issue at least, if not in the back half, that you're certainly in the following year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but the.
Speaker 2:And so it lines up. It will out itself.
Speaker 1:So Mike Umbrough calls it the energy boomerang where all this empty not empty, but all these promises and hope about what this new? Everyone switches TVs, but you're going back to it. You're right. You think about who does it really impact? It doesn't impact people that can afford TVs. It impacts the people that have to rely on one car that take their kids to school. They have to go to work, they have to do this. You're asking them to go out and spend a $60,000 car, charge it you can't even charge it overnight at your place but only that like if it gets damaged, like a five, like there's a lot to owning an EV and to demand for everyone to kind of jump in this EV role. You're right, it doesn't affect the people that make a decision. It affects the people that don't have the opportunity or the can't afford these luxuries and an EV is not a zero emissions option it really is not.
Speaker 2:You know, arjun Murdy, who's a colleague at Veritan with me, just has really spoken very eloquently about, you see, the EV demand in China. It's there, they're adopting EVs. It may not be, I think we all agree. We know China is still building coal fire power plants.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah.
Speaker 2:Their environmental goals are not in the talk for them 100%, and EVs are a good choice for them because they have so much coal and the charging of the EVs is what's such an issue. When you look at our grid, if everyone here had an EV and they were trying to charge it at night when they came home, our grid couldn't sustain that.
Speaker 1:Well, our grid can't sustain 100. We had power. We had rolling brownouts this weekend in my house yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So there's this whole further down the road problem with that that China may not necessarily have, because they import oil, but they sit on coal. So they're going to increase coal to power EVs. Is that good environmentally OK?
Speaker 1:I don't know Right.
Speaker 2:And that's why you really have to look at this as a global issue. It's not going to be the same for every country, every region. We're all sitting on different resources. Some countries are able really to utilize hydro very well. We can't necessarily do that here. We're on great natural gas and oil deposits. But countries, especially like India, that want to be able to provide for their people, they need to be able to utilize their coal in a clean way, and that's why we need to be investing in things like carbon capture. But then there's a lot of voices out there saying we don't want to invest in carbon capture because that just sustains the life of fossil fuels. No, it cleans. Where we are right now. You got to focus on the issue that you can attack right now and then, as other technologies develop and come, they'll come in. We're going to need everything, like I said, but we've got to focus on what we can reduce the emissions on now. It's about the emissions, not the kind of energy source.
Speaker 2:OK, and that's an easy way to talk about it too, and that's an easy way to talk to people about nuclear.
Speaker 1:So when did you get again? I guess, going back to this first question I had 15 minutes ago, like how did you I mean, I just realized this, you seem very passionate right now about energy. What, I guess? What was the conduit that brought you towards energy? So you got back to you started doing these trade manufacturers? I'm very fascinated. How did you get into the energy space?
Speaker 2:So at the NAM, when I started doing advocacy, that was really advising for manufacturing, of which energy is an important part. But most of my member companies that I was working with, like I said, were the EMP companies based here in Texas, and so that was kind of my first exposure, but I didn't even know the difference between an EMP and a service provider.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I didn't either.
Speaker 2:But while I was there at the NAM, one of the member companies and the two larger service well, two of the service providers that were there came and said look, we love working with you. We have our own trade association just for service providers, and would you consider leaving the manufacturers and doing just energy services work? And so I was like, no, I'm not interested in that. But really, as they started talking to me and I saw what I could do with that trade association, it just became so clear to me that there was so much opportunity. So when I came on, my predecessor had been there for 32 years.
Speaker 1:OK, OK.
Speaker 2:And the organization itself was 75 years old. There were 50 people on the board.
Speaker 1:People didn't even know if it's 50 people on the board, 50 people on the board.
Speaker 2:People didn't even know if all of them were alive.
Speaker 1:OK, very bureaucratic, varied. This is with very slow to change, slow to change, slow to change Almost no governance, no advocacy really.
Speaker 2:And I knew how to build that. I knew how to change governance, I knew how to build an advocacy shop. And so over the course of the first gosh, even the first six months, I restructured the entire board. I changed all the committees.
Speaker 1:I love this.
Speaker 2:And I should say wait, this was me and my team, but we really changed how the entire organization was structured so that we could build a foundation, and we even changed the branding, which is something that I understood from my former life. We had to change our branding so that we had a strong foundation to be able to advocate effectively in Washington. The strongest OFS wash or kind of. The way you talk about what we do in Washington in a way that people can understand is we always said this is where all the people are, this is where the energy workforce is. They work for service companies.
Speaker 2:We look at how oil and gas has developed, the bulk of the workforce really is with the service providers and a ton of the technology comes out of that. And so you can really take those two aspects, the workforce and the technology, and talk in such a positive way about this industry, about what we do, without the overhang of the big oil issues. And that was exciting for me, and so we developed that through our advocacy and then also developed all the workforce training opportunities, all the best practices around health and safety.
Speaker 1:So this is the energy workforce technology, so you came in first off. That's fascinating. So, going back to this, going back to the change yes, I love the fact there's people, the technology side of things. But let's talk about the 75-year-old organization. Let's talk about how you, coming in from DC, a woman from DC and, yes, I'm bringing up a woman, that's a important part of it too. How are you coming in to the 75-year-old regime pretty much where you don't even know who's alive, who's I'm on the board and implement change. Change in that, I mean, how do you because change I mean first off, you have people that are with you or kind of against you, kind of sabotage you how do you get everyone on board? Two, I mean, let's say I'm sitting here, I'm listening to this, you know whatever I'm saying. I really would love to come and change this. We need a great change to this organization. What are your, what are Leslie's steps to come in and to create that amount of change, that and kind of bring people with you.
Speaker 2:When I interviewed with the executive committee, I said the way that you are structured right now will not work Like. It has to be completely broken down and redone and not everybody's going to like that. And you know, if you want, if you're going to hire me, you're going to have to support me and trust that I know what I'm doing. And that's what they did. So in three individuals from the board in particular, I just came in and started blowing everything up and not everybody was happy with that.
Speaker 2:But anytime anything would come up where I needed someone to have my back, those three gentlemen 100% had my back, Plus from my former life as a White House staff person in charge of what the president does anywhere. You have to work so closely with the Secret Service and the White House Military Office because anytime the president goes anywhere, the three groups that decide what's going to happen. It's the Secret Service, the White House Military Office and the White House staff together in conjunction and they have three very different, competing agendas. The Secret Service would prefer he not ever to leave.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So the White House Military Office wants him to be close to comms all the time, as close as possible to comms. The White House staff wants him to be visible engaging with people.
Speaker 2:And you have to work together to achieve something positive when everyone else has really different, competing agendas. And that's, I think, what prepared me to change everything at Energy Workforce. I didn't make any enemies. I had, you know, people that had my back for sure, but I was able to work with my team and you know our current president, molly Duderman, and Tim Tarpley. Molly was with me at that time and, man, she was executing and we were.
Speaker 1:Oh, she did a phenomenon. I mean I've been watching her since I met her up in Oklahoma when you interviewed Harold Hamm, that's what I think when. I first met her. I'm really honed in digging what y'all are doing over there, what Molly's doing over there.
Speaker 2:Yes, so Molly and Tim are both leading that in the president role.
Speaker 2:Tim has been with us for the past four years. But Molly was there with me in the very beginning when we were changing everything. And you know we really worked hard to develop relationships of trust Again, you know, working with every single board member saying, look, this is what we propose, this is what we think is going to work and be good for us in the long term. What's your goal, what are your thoughts on this? And we didn't have to go with everything they said every time, but at least people were insulted and I think people felt part of the change. And then we had to live through that again when we acquired another trade association. We had a merger with the association of. That was two years with the.
Speaker 2:AASC and we brought on the well servicing a lot of the wireline companies. We had to merge our cultures completely. We had to change the governance again.
Speaker 1:It was, you know, we had a two years Because there was a big rebranding there as well.
Speaker 2:Right, there was a big rebranding at that time and we changed our governance structure again to include everyone in an equal way, and that was difficult. You know Everyone. It's interesting because that is what you manage as a trade association person. A lot of people are like, well, you don't have experience running. You know what's your financial experience? Like, yeah, my financial experience is great because I ran it, but I dealt in the currency of, you know, not so much ego, but people were really invested personally in what happened and you have to honor that. When you're working with people that are giving their volunteer time to promote the industry so those things are hard it's not necessarily money, it's passion, and when you're dealing in passion you have to do things a certain way. And it was just such an extraordinary experience and such great relationships have come out of it. And then Molly and Tim are now, you know, taking it to the next level.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, it seems like okay. So first off, can you real briefly describe me what the Energy Technology Workforce Council is, because I'm familiar with it? Very briefly, because I went to, I think, one of y'all's meeting in Oklahoma City. I was just blown away about the education that it provides, the advocacy provides, and you recently took a step down from your role over there as Chief Executive Officer. Is that correct? Yes, so first off, talk to me real quick about, I guess, what you've been doing there, but also kind of where is it at today and is this something that people get involved in? Is this something that people can learn about? I mean, how is this something that our industry should support a little bit more? I mean, talk to us about, kind of like what?
Speaker 1:it does and what could be needed from our industry.
Speaker 2:So a trade association exists to promote and empower its members and our trade association really was originally created specifically for energy services and OFS companies but it has grown really to be more of a broader advocate across the industry. But we speak a lot on Washington, we go to Washington, we do things at the state level and Tim runs all of that policy and advocacy work on really helping educate elected officials, regulators, on what energy services companies do, what the energy workforce means, what it looks like, what our diversity is like, how we are becoming better, what tools we're using and that we need to become better in diversity. And then at the same time, so we have that whole advocacy arm and any member can be involved in that Anyone that if you work for a company, that's a member of energy workforce. So if you work for St Margette, you're one of those many thousand people, you are a member of energy workforce.
Speaker 2:If you work for Forum, if you work for Oceaneering, any of those companies, and there's 200 of them that means you're a member and if you want to go with us to Washington to advocate, you can.
Speaker 2:All those opportunities are there and we have obviously an international piece in trade and so we have ambassadors from energy producing countries coming in. We train ambassadors from the continent of Africa on how the energy industry works. We train foreign service officers, which is such an interesting full service loop for me. My whole life wanted to be a foreign service officer at state. Now we train foreign service officers.
Speaker 1:How do you execute? Okay, there's with so many plates spinning, how do you effectively execute all these? I'm not even saying these are lofty goals, but these are still goals and different ideas that you kind of want to pull together and execute effectively. How do you kind of how do you do that? I mean, how do you with?
Speaker 2:Well, our management team between me, tim and Molly you know everybody had their bucket that they worked on. I was kind of the external person out speaking to the things like Mr Ham.
Speaker 2:Molly was managing all the education and the committees and the best practices and all that and Tim was managing all the policy and advocacy and actually he oversees the ESG. They really worked together. All three of us worked on a lot of the sustainability and ESG stuff. So we all kind of had our buckets and we worked together on all of those things. But it's really just if you think about it in two parts. It's advocating and all the advocacy and the education and the training and we exist and promote. We exist to promote our industry and to help educate.
Speaker 2:And we even do like executive coaching. I mean all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 1:So I love that because I think there's I mean there's a huge conversation piece right now in the industry when it comes to being an advocate, when it comes to the realities of energy and all that stuff. So I love the fact that you know that y'all are out there to provide this sort of information and kind of a community, to learn how to get engaged into policy makers and decision makers, which I love. So so that's nine and a half years, nine and a half years, and I'm so passionate about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I could tell.
Speaker 2:And I always will be, just because I have left. You know, I was hired for a specific reason to build that place and, to you know, put it on a trajectory of growth. And I did and it was wonderful and it was an extraordinary experience. And then I felt like, okay, I achieved that and it was wonderful, but I started working on corporate boards about three years ago and so I was. I became an independent director on a gas, a separate company in Newland about three years ago and then joined the next tier board this year and I love that work. It's completely different.
Speaker 1:Is it really Okay?
Speaker 2:Yes, and so for me, I was ready to kind of make that transition.
Speaker 2:Jim and Molly were already jamming and it was time to just you know for me to be able to step away and I can still be an advocate. Like you said, I can be an advocate. Just I don't have to be in that role to be an advocate. And then I'm an independent director, I'm an advisor, still at Veritan, and so it's for me. I'm able to touch a lot of different buckets still. I do a lot of policy work still with Mr Ham and the Ham Institute, so I'm able to touch a bunch of different things now. And my kids I've got three teenagers in high school, so I got a senior and two freshmen and they kind of need me a little more now than they did before.
Speaker 1:Whether they admit it or not, whether they admit it or not, I know my daughter went from like seven years old to 14 over two weeks, and I don't know why I'm suddenly not cool anymore she needs me. She needs me to be funny.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my coolness, you know changes. I disagree.
Speaker 1:I think I'm pretty cool, yeah, no, I need to tell my daughter. I'm still pretty cool, yeah, right.
Speaker 2:So I felt like I had accomplished a lot there and it was such a positive experience and it was easy to just kind of Step away from that gracefully, because Tim and Molly were such great leaders. I know I was leaving it.
Speaker 1:It's also exciting to see where they're going to take it next.
Speaker 2:They're going to do great with it For me. I'm able to have a different role now as an independent director, as an advisor, still very involved in the political world in Washington. I have a little more time to be able to focus more on my kids for a little while. But I got a lot of powder in my keg. I'm not retired forever. I'd be surprised if I just do this.
Speaker 1:We get too bored. Let's wrap this up. I know it's Monday and there's some stuff to do. Let's talk about this. Two questions. The first question is where we are. You answered this a little bit too. Where we are at in the industry right now. Unfortunately, energy has taken the limelight, and the political limelight, which it sucks. I wish energy would never take the political limelight, but we're here right now. What would you tell people out there that are listening in, who are listening to this doom and gloom? They're getting upset because I think there's a lot of motion tied right now when it comes to anything political politics, whatever, all that stuff. Where should people keep their folks and keep their message to not get muddied up with the rhetoric and the other? Does that make sense? Where should people keep the dialogue at when they're having these discussions that come?
Speaker 2:to the energy realities.
Speaker 2:It can be difficult to not engage in an emotional conversation about energy. However, it can be a positive emotional conversation For me. When anybody talks to me about energy they can tell it's emotional. I don't just sit there and kind of spit out facts. They can tell I care a lot about it, enough to educate myself and to be able to try to persuade others to my way of thinking. That's what you have to do is just realize that any conversation around it, as long as the emotion is positive, that's okay. As long as you bring that up out of just a distinctly US conversation when you really talk about it and I think Chris was really one of the first people to do this well, chris Wright really set the tone for that to talk about how this is a global conversation. This is not just a US conversation. It kind of diffuses things.
Speaker 1:It takes that whole tension that we have Us vs them, Us vs them camp. It takes that out.
Speaker 2:When you talk about, what do you really want for people who are trying to come out of poverty and developing nations?
Speaker 1:What is? I think this will be the last question, unless there's anything that you'd like to kind of conclude us with what would be kind of a stereotype or an image about the industry that you've been kind of battling or kind of been kind of you enjoy combating and disproving For me, I'm going to kind of give you a little space to think about that. It's the concept that the only gas space is the uneducated, roughneck, spin and chain or the 75-year-old white-haired dude pouring oil outside the orphanage. We're an industry. It's a diverse industry of, you know, entrepreneurs, environmentalists, tech gurus, engineers, problem solvers. It's such a cool environment. It's like a fun space, like tech, entrepreneurial marketing. It's a great environment, and that's kind of something that I've been focused on is reintroducing who we are as an industry. So what's kind of one of the things that you've been kind of going after? To disprove or reintroduce who we are as an industry?
Speaker 2:I spent a lot of time as CEO, even though it wasn't like a mandated part of my function really talking about women in this industry and how important they are and the roles that they have and how we can bring more women in, because what we're doing is so exciting I think that has been one of the things that I have loved working on is promoting other women and trying to attract more to our industry. And we have there are women here, but we need a lot more. But we are not the industry, like you said. That is stereotypical. However, there is a fine point that I have always put on this and all of my diversity work is that you know I mentor and sponsor and coach other women, but I never had a female mentor.
Speaker 2:There are men in this industry that are so extraordinary and are there to help other diverse people move forward, and I think that's such an important part. When you talk about diversity, you really have to include the men who use their space, that are we're here, you know in those executive positions that are reaching down and pulling up all that diverse talent. That, to me, is so important because I care so much about my male mentors and what they've done for me that I see that get lost sometimes when we talk about, you know, diversity in women. We have to remember that allies are the ones who really help.
Speaker 2:And that's, you know, across gender or race diversity, anything, I think that's such an important part.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you for that.
Speaker 1:I completely did, and you are seeing such a huge, I want to say a reserve, but you're seeing kind of more light being pushed towards, you know, kind of women in the energy space, everything from Masi on Jamie, from flipping the barrel to you know we had, you know Paula, you know as the president of the trolling club and all that. I mean you're seeing that and you're loving that. I mean I'm digging that. I mean obviously you know as someone with a husband and a daughter who just texted me yesterday from other homes she wants to be a geologist. Like I'm all for it. So so okay, I dig that and also leaving Molly stepping in as the energy technology workforce. So working people, I guess what's, what's what's what's the next?
Speaker 1:step. Well, let's get to that, but what's the next step for you? Then let's talk about how people can kind of tune into energy technology council work. I know I probably butchered that, but yeah.
Speaker 2:No, it's okay. Next step for me. I'm very focused on my board career. And how we have a big, you know merger going on with next year in Patterson. That.
Speaker 1:I'm very excited about.
Speaker 2:Very excited to work with the Patterson team, so super focused on, on just the positive energy around that, and then I'll continue my advocacy work, you know. I am very involved politically and so and I always will be, so you'll see me pop up.
Speaker 1:You know a little bit on that election, your time coming up, so I love that.
Speaker 2:And. But as far as energy workforce, the best thing to do is just get on the newsletter, because there's a newsletter that comes out once weekly and it has it has. You know, tim writes little snippets about what's happening and advocacy, what's happening in Washington, how it impacts our companies. Molly has in there everything in ESG sustainability, all the upcoming events, what's happening in executive coaching or you know all. There's 16 different committees that get together and share best practices. You have access to all of that in the newsletter and if you just get that once a week and give it a, you know three minutes scroll you'll find something that you care about in there.
Speaker 2:And I think an important thing to just to say before we close it out it's easy to get really focused on your internal brand when you're working, especially in a large company, but one of the things that trade associations do for people it really helps you develop your external brand and you can't forget about developing your external brand outside of your company and that is how that is a really great way to leverage trade associations to meet people in your sector, to take a leadership role on a committee. You know, maybe you don't have access to a leadership role in your company, but you could on a committee and you know you can have all kinds of experiences there and your external brand is what carries you to the next step. If there's anything that I've learned in my life having, you know, been in two different industries and careers it's that you know your brand and your relationships and your network are so important. So I would say that is a great way to use a trade association.
Speaker 1:And the last thing to wrap this up with what advice, insight, counsel Leslie's words of wisdom would you give to women out there that are not only in the industry currently but also that might be looking to join the industry and all that stuff? So what, what advice would you give to either your younger self out there in the industry, or something like that?
Speaker 2:I mean in this industry women support women so well and I think you know even you mentioned Jamie and Marcial. I mean that that whole flipping the barrel thing has just taken off because women have an opportunity to get out there and support each other and that is gratifying and fun to be a part of.
Speaker 2:And so I mean I wouldn't ever want any woman to look at our industry and be like, well, I wouldn't fit in because I'd be the only woman in the room. Sometimes I'm the only woman in the room, but I don't mind that, I'm still. You know, I bring all these other things to the table and if it just doesn't bother me and there are more and more women and more diverse talent coming in, that it's a great place to be and it's an innovative place to be and you can be passionate and excited about it.
Speaker 1:Amen to that. Well, leslie, we're going to drop in on that. Thank you so much for your time. Obviously, I feel like we probably have another podcast or two to kind of learn more kind of about your background and kind of where you're at today and also kind of learn about kind of what you're working on in the future. But, leslie, thank you for your time. Obviously, I appreciate this way overdue, but I'm glad we were able to do this and we look forward to seeing your continued success and your involvement. And, for those that out there, please connect with Leslie on LinkedIn or, however, and obviously check out a energy workforce.
Speaker 2:Energy workforce and technology council.
Speaker 1:Look, with all the rebrands I'm getting it close, so give me a break. So thank you all out there for energy. If you enjoy this, please share it, subscribe, like and all that fun stuff, and I guess we'll see you next time. Thank you everybody, thank you.