“Perception is reality.” This was the very first career pep talk I heard, as a freshly minted petroleum engineer graduate in 2015. At the time, I had no idea how much power this sentence would have over me. Power can mean a lot of things in our oil and gas industry – from electricity to the terms of a corporate joint venture or the dynamics of office politics. What does power mean to you?
Those three words instantly filled my mind with dread and self-doubt. “What if I don’t belong? None of the leadership looks like me at all. Where would a professional of color, as well as a member of the LGBTQ+ community, even fit in here?”
That pep talk forced me to realize the reality of how unbalanced the power dynamics are in our energy industry, inequitably excluding women, people of color (PoC), LGBTQ+ and other minorities. We often feel like we don’t belong and, sadly, often feel forced out of the energy industry.
As I chatted with my peers in our oil and industry, I noticed a pattern. When I spoke to peers who were minorities, or even multi-minorities, they still felt a sense of powerlessness and lack of belonging. They told me about how it felt like they were continuously “working for the same boss, just a different face.” There was no diversity in our industry and there definitely was no inclusion. This was both my wake-up call and my “aha!” moment.
I suddenly realized what power meant to me.
To me, power means that there are other minorities out there who haven’t found their voice and that it’s my civic duty to help them find it. It’s why I continue to advocate for allyship through various positions on the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) committees, by empowering others who haven’t found their own voice yet.
Like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I too “have a dream.” I dream of a better future for our energy industry, a more inclusive future and culture. I want an energy industry that doesn’t just tolerate our differences, but an industry that celebrates them.
That is why when I served on our SPE Hiring Event Planning Committee, I immediately looked at our list of partnered professional societies. I wanted to see how I could help enable more minorities to feel that they belong at our SPE hiring event and, in turn, our energy industry. I wanted to be able to say that I had made a difference in someone’s life and our oil and gas industry, once it was time to gracefully step down.
I served as the Social Media Coordinator and the Media Coordinator for our SPE Hiring Event Committee Board for nearly two years. During that period, I stubbornly advocated for more diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and I can proudly say that it was a success! We were able to include the Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers (SASE), Oilfield Christian Fellowship and GeoLatinas in our SPE Hiring Event.
This is what power means to me: I will continue to use my voice to help professionals who are women, Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC), LGBTQ+, neurodiverse and other minorities to feel a sense of belonging in the oil and gas industry and to see and hear through example, “YES. YOU BELONG. There are people who look just like you!”
Headline photo: Marlette Dumas, PMP, senior project risk management engineer, bp, and Chris Dao.
Chris Dao is an accomplished energy industry tech leader. He graduated in 2015 from the University of Texas at Austin and has worked as a software engineer with big names like Microsoft and Chevron. In his free time, he serves on engineering society leadership boards, like the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE), and is passionate about shepherding women and minorities into the tech industry.
- Chris Daohttps://energiesmedia.com/author/chris-dao/
Oil and gas operations are commonly found in remote locations far from company headquarters. Now, it's possible to monitor pump operations, collate and analyze seismic data, and track employees around the world from almost anywhere. Whether employees are in the office or in the field, the internet and related applications enable a greater multidirectional flow of information – and control – than ever before.