
\documentstyle[12pt]{article}
\topmargin  -1.in
\setlength{\footskip}{0.0in}
\setlength{\footheight}{0.0in}
\oddsidemargin .0in
\textwidth 6.5in 
\pagestyle{empty}
\begin{document}
\hspace{13cm} March 23, 2001\\
      
\noindent SPWLA Foundation Committee\\
8866 Gulf Freeway, suite 320\\
Houston, TX 77017\\

\noindent Dear Sir/Madam:\\

\noindent After working for four years at Shell Deepwater Development
Inc. as a petrophysicist, I made the decision last year to return to
graduate school to earn a Ph.D.  With no family concerns and little
common sense, I was able to make this decision despite the attendant
quartering of my annual income.\\

\noindent Having had some interest in what the the Colorado School of
Mines geophysics department called
Borehole Geophysics, I took an opportunity to work for Western-Atlas
Logging Services during the summer of 1996 in Venezuela to understand
more.  Needless to say I enjoyed myself, but also learned how
small-scale geophysics  was an exciting and
variable field with many, rather than just one, energy sources.  So upon
graduation I accepted a position with the exploration segment of
Shell's organization in Louisiana.\\

\noindent While in New Orleans I was an active member of the local
chapter of the Society of Professional Well Log Analysts and have
attended several SPWLA conferences in the preceding few years.
Within Shell I was responsible for pre-drill pressure and stress
prediction, AVO analysis, formation evaluation, rock and fluid
analysis, and segments of reservoir modeling for the Green Canyon
area.  I was the project petrophysicist for Angus, Manatee, and
Holstein that may be familiar to the industry.\\

\noindent During this tenure in the exploration industry, I became
aware of a separation between the rock physics and seismic processing
fields.  Also discouraging was the fact that I was forced to make
sweeping interpretations of reservoir properties after only having
investigated a few inches of formation.\\

\noindent It is my hope then that I can contribute to narrowing this
middle ground between fields while working on my graduate degree here
at Stanford.  This program boasts several renown research groups that
I hope to become involved in toward this end. They include: the
Stanford Exploration Project, the Stanford Rock Physics and Borehole
Geophysics Project, and the Seismic Tomography Project.\\

\noindent Sincerely,\\\\


\noindent Brad Artman\\
\noindent 110 H McFarland Ct.\\
\noindent Stanford, CA 94305\\
\noindent brad@sep.stanford.edu\\

\end{document}
