Seamount takes over as AOGCC chair

Dan Seamount replaced John Norman as chairman of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission effective Jan. 30.

Norman holds the public seat on the commission; he was appointed in 2004, taking over for then-commission Chair Sarah Palin.

The three commissioners serve staggered six-year terms. They are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Legislature.

Statutes governing the commission provide that the governor designate a member of the commission as chair for a four-year term; a member may not be appointed to successive terms as chair.

Seamount, who holds the geologist chair, has been on the commission since 2000.

The commission’s third member is Cathy Foerster, who holds the petroleum engineer seat; she was appointed in 2005 and reappointed in 2007. Seamount has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in geology from the University of California at Riverside. He was a senior advising geologist with Unocal Alaska Resources prior to his appointment to the commission; he was reappointed in 2005.

Norman holds law and geology degrees from the University of Missouri; before being named to the commission he was with the law firm of Hartig Rhodes Hoge & Lekisch, where he was a founding partner and shareholder.

Foerster, a reservoir engineer, has a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Texas in Austin and was with PRA when named to the commission; prior to that she was with ARCO.

—Petroleum News