Employee Profile
Kris Vickerman
P.Eng., P.Geol., M.Sc.
President

Kris Vickerman received a B.Sc. degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Calgary and, subsequent to joining HEF, an M.Sc. in Geology from the University of Calgary, specializing in borehole-scale structures and their appearance in borehole image logs.

Kris came to HEF in 1996 as a summer student and, after graduating as an engineer, joined his mentor, Paul Heffernan, full-time in 1997 as a borehole image processor and interpreter. In this capacity, Kris frequently solved the more complicated processing challenges and, in his off time, conducted research and development work on programming for fracture density, fracture aperture, true-stratigraphic thickness presentations and many other means of displaying and understanding dip and image data. Starting around 2000, Kris became more involved in the geological interpretation side of the business and returned to school part-time, completing his geology thesis in 2010. Since then, he has been the technical lead at HEF and writes the bulk of our geologic reports.

Kris is a professional Engineer and a professional Geologist and has had a hand in processing and interpreting thousands of wells world-wide. He has presented technical talks on topics ranging from image processing to natural and induced fractures, mesoscopic structures, oilsands facies interpretation, caprock evaluation, permeability determination and more. Kris has taught many informal courses on borehole image log interpretation and is the successor and caretaker of Paul Heffernan’s experience and legacy in the industry.

Employee Profile
Richard Surtees
B.Sc., P.Geol.
Technical Manager

Richard Surtees received an honours B.Sc. degree in Applied Geology from the University of Waterloo in 1995 and a diploma in computer programing from the Institute for Computer Studies in 1999.

Richard began his career as a co-op student working as a drilling supervisor for Syncrude, a surveyor for the Atomic Energy of Canada and soils technician for the Toronto Transit Commission.

From 1997-2001, Richard worked as an exploration geologist in Ontario, a database programmer for the oil and gas industry in Calgary and a wellsite geologist in Alberta.

Richard came to HEF in 2002 and quicky became the Technical Manager, processing and analyzing image data, and making structural and stratigraphic interpretations for North American and International wells. Richard has interpreted over 3000 Canadian Oilsands wells for bedding and caprock integrity, VSH, lithology, paleocurrent, depositional environment and vuggy analysis, while preparing petrophysical and geological repots. Richard plays a leading role in upgrading petrophysical programs with a focus on improving understanding of borehole image interpretation. His most recent success was creating a proprietary program to correctly calculate permeability using borehole image logs.

Allied Partners
Bruce Wrightson
M.Sc., P.Geol.
Structural Geologist

Bruce Wrightson received his M.Sc. degree in Structural Geology from the University of Alberta. Bruce, owner of Gaia Resources Ltd., has worked as an independent consulting Geologist in Canada since the early 80's. He founded Gaia Software Inc., which jointly developed dipmeter manipulation and interpretation software that saw wide use in Canada.

Bruce has analyzed several hundreds of dipmeter and image log data sets and outcrop orientation data from a wide variety of structural geology settings including compressional, strike slip and extensional regimes. He is familiar with a number of structural geology analysis software programs, is an expert using Statistical Curvature Analysis Techniques (SCAT) in structural geology and routinely provides guidance to exploration and development projects.

Bruce has worked closely with HEF from 1993 to the present, analyzing a wide variety of borehole image data types for approximately 60 or more wells each year, providing structural geology interpretations, natural fracture and stress regime analyses in a number of project areas including the North Sea, East Africa, Zagros Mountains, Yemen, Qatar, Tunisia, Chad, Albania, Poland, Ukraine, Turkey, China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Algeria, Cuba, Trinidad, Guatemala, France, Western Canada, USA, Brunei, Colombia, Ecuador, Georgia, Hungary, Libya, and others.

Allied Partners
William Jamison
Ph.D., P.Geol.
Structural Geologist

William (Jamie) Jamison received a B.Sc. degree in Physics from Georgia Tech, and M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Geology from University of Calgary and Texas A&M University, respectively. Dr. Jamison was a research scientist/supervisor for 11 years at the Cities Service and Amoco research centers in Tulsa. Subsequently, he was an Associate Professor (Research) at Memorial University of Newfoundland. In 1996 Dr. Jamison moved to Calgary as a consulting structural geologist (The Upper Crust Inc.).

Throughout his professional career, Dr. Jamison has focused on natural fracture development and on the mechanics and geometry of folds and faults in various structural settings. He has extensive field experience through western North America and in a number of international locations and a strong background in theoretical and applied geomechanics. He has authored and co-authored articles that have appeared in Journal of Structural Geology, Tectonophysics, AAPG Bulletin, GSA Bulletin, Journal of Geophysical Research, and other publications.

Since coming to Calgary, Dr. Jamison has had a strong alliance with HEF Petrophysical Inc., incorporating his field experience, core studies and theoretical work with image log evaluation. The mainstays of his HEF-related work are the creation of structural cross sections from image log data and quantitative evaluation of fracture development from image log data, linked to core and/or outcrop data whenever possible.