Northside: How to Herd Cats - Developing a Playbook for Competitive Intelligence Gathering at Technical Conferences

Michael Cronin works as a reservoir engineer in the deepwater Guyana team at ExxonMobil. He holds a PhD in Energy & Mineral Engineering from Pennsylvania State University, a master’s degree in Geological Sciences from the University of Texas at Austin, and dual bachelor’s degrees in Petroleum & Natural Gas Engineering and Geosciences (with honors) from Pennsylvania State University, where he received the 2011 Eric A. Walker Award. Cronin is a member of SPE since 2009 and recipient of the 2019 Cedric K. Ferguson Medal, the 2021 SPE Regional Young Professional Member Outstanding Service Award, and is a member of the 2023 Offshore Technology Conference Emerging Leader Class. He is an advisor and former Editor in Chief for SPE The Way Ahead.  His technical interests include enhanced oil recovery in unconventional reservoirs, gas injection, phase behavior, applied analytical modeling, reservoir simulation, and development geology. He lives in Houston with his wife Susanna and their three children and is a licensed Professional Engineer in Texas.

Casey Kelly is a research librarian and analyst in the corporate library at ExxonMobil. She holds a Master of Science in Information Studies from the University of Texas iSchool, where she focused on business and competitive intelligence research. Since joining ExxonMobil in 2015, Casey has been utilizing her skills to conduct information research and analytics, including competitive intelligence for various teams in the company.

Over the last four years, Casey has also been actively involved in her profession as a member of the Petroleum Abstracts Industry Advisory Council of librarians. The council collaborates to organize an annual small conference, which Casey has been an integral part of. She is also a member of the Special Libraries Association and its Competitive Intelligence Community as the Conference Chair for 2024, being tasked with developing the CI programming for this year’s conference.