Swing by NUB 2534 for drop in career advising with the Michigan Earth Alumni Advisory Board (AAB). Six members of the AAB will participate in our annual Thursday pizza dinner with students. This is an informal meeting with only EARTH students and AAB members. No EARTH faculty. This is a time for students to talk with our alumni about careers, networking, graduate school, etc. There is no script.



The following AAB members will be participating:

Jessica Bleha Professional Geologist (PG), Hydrogeologist with more than 15 years of environmental consulting experience, including over a decade of project management, planning, and coordination of projects. Jessica’s expertise includes hydrogeological assessments of surface and groundwater resources; environmental site assessments; conceptual modeling; data management systems; mine remediation and permitting; inventory of orphaned oil and gas wells; and monitoring well, soil boring, and remediation system installations. She is also proficient in various environmental and engineering software, including ArcGIS, AQTESOLV, LogPlot, and RockWorks20.Since joining LimnoTech in 2020, Jessica has performed and overseen several soil, groundwater, and surface water investigations for PFAS, evaluated municipal well-pumping test data, and provided remedial design and support for a Superfund site. She is a licensed Professional Geologist in Minnesota and Wisconsin and has a Master’s and Bachelor’s degree in Geological Sciences from the University of Montana and the University of Michigan, respectively.



Larry Davis Senior Advisor & CHief Scientist at MAP Energy, LLC. In 2004, MAP pioneered a new investment structure in the renewable energy industry by creating royalty interests for wind energy assets. MAP made over $1 billion of investments in wind energy, utility-scale solar, and energy storage in the onshore US. MAP participated in the development of approximately 11% of all operating wind energy capacity in the US. In December 2020, MAP completed a transaction to sell the renewable energy and energy storage assets held by seven different funds. MAP continues to manage one of the largest private portfolios of mineral and royalty interests in the US and remains focused on energy investing.



Steve Henry (BS'73, MS' 78, PhD'81) spent his career investigating the formation of on-shore and off-shore sedimentary basins.



Scott Tinker has visited nearly 60 countries where he has presented 700 keynotes and invited lectures to government, industry, academia, and the public. Dr. Tinker is an AAPG Halbouty Leadership Medalist, AGI Campbell Medalist, GCAGS Boyd Medalist, a Fellow of the Geologic Society of America, and has been broadly awarded by AIPG, AGI, AAPG, and TIPRO for his successful efforts to engage the public in science. Tinker had a 17-year career in industry before joining The University of Texas at Austin in 2000, where he serves as director of the 275-person Bureau of Economic Geology, the State Geologist of Texas, and a professor holding the Allday Endowed Chair in the Jackson School of Geosciences. Dr. Tinker has been president of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, the Association of American State Geologists, the American Geosciences Institute, and the Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies, and he serves on private, public, academic, and government boards. Dr. Tinker co-produced and is featured in the award-winning energy documentary film, Switch, seen by over 15 million viewers in 50 countries and used in thousands of educational campuses worldwide. Scott is producing another film, Switch On focused on energy poverty. Scott is the voice of EarthDate, bringing weekly stories about earth and science to over 300 National Public Radio stations in all 50 U.S. states. Tinker’s degrees are from the University of Colorado, the University of Michigan, and Trinity University.



Dan Wiitala, BS ’86 Michigan; MS ’89, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (Dr. Robert Taylor, advisor, applied geophysics) has been practicing as a professional geologist in the field of hydrogeological consulting continuously since 1989. His career started with Barr Engineering Company in Minneapolis and focused on groundwater contaminant transport investigations and remediation from which he built a successful consulting practice centered on legacy mining environmental impacts remediation in the Upper Great Lakes basin (Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan). That practice has evolved into a science and engineering consulting firm established in Marquette, Michigan (North Jackson Company) in 1998 that specializes in groundwater/surface water resources evaluation; water supply well and systems design; and environmental impact assessment and permitting (wetlands, streams and large quantity groundwater withdrawals); and web-based environmental monitoring database management and remote, automated hydrological data acquisition. North Jackson Company has been consulting on predictive hydrology, monitoring and data management services to the Eagle Mine copper-nickel project in Marquette County in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula since 2002, and also on numerous iron mining projects in Michigan and Minnesota. Dan is a licensed professional geologist (P.G.) in Wisconsin and Minnesota.



Bill Zempolich (BSc., MSc., PhD geology) General Manager, Global Reserves Chevron. Recognized for academic and professional contributions as an American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) Distinguished Lecturer in 2001-02, and in 2006 was awarded the Distinguished Geologist Award by the Kazakh Ministry of Geology. In the positions of Exploration Manager and Subsurface Director (OKIOC/AgipKCO), oversaw a large, multi-disciplined, international workforce which successfully planned and completed the exploration, appraisal, and early development of the supergiant Kashagan field and other prospects of the North Caspian Sea license area, Kazakhstan.



Pizza will be provided!