March AAPL Quarterly Board & Annual Meeting Report

Tucson, AZ

 

The AAPL Board of Directors has just concluded the March Quarterly Board Meeting at the JW Marriott Star Pass Resort in Tucson Arizona.   With a full slate of Directors and Committee Chair’s, your Board thoroughly reviewed and addressed the pressing issues of our Association.  With Membership around 18,000 despite the industry downturn, AAPL is looking at ways to trim the budget but remains financially stable.  Your Board thoroughly reviewed, discussed and voted on numerous issues affecting all facets of the issues affecting our Association, our Industry & our profession.  The Board will reconvene in Orlando Florida in June for the Annual Meeting.  It is going to be another a great annual Meeting and I encourage you to make your plans to attend. 

Staff Report:

The March Board meeting is always hectic with budget / audit approvals and committee progress reaching a fever pitch.  As you know, AAPL has moved into its new Headquarter building which is located at 800 Fournier Street in Ft. Worth, TX  76102.  An open house / Ribbon Cutting Ceremony was held in November with 19 past Presidents, the Ft. Worth Mayor and Chamber representatives in attendance.  Additionally numerous committee meetings have been held at Headquarters in an effort to trim costs on meeting space.  The new facility is an impressive flagship for our Association and I think it is noteworthy that the staff is functioning at a much greater efficiency as we now have room to host all 30 staff members (with additional space to house 4 new employees if necessary).  The new building also allows the association to cut costs by hosting numerous committee meetings that were often held offsite due to space limitations.  The new building is a tremendous improvement to the public face of our Association and although there continue to be some expected additional maintenance costs.  The building and property at Fossil Creek sale was finalized on January 12th and AAPL realized a net profit of $1,102,113.00. 

The Nominating Committee put forth its recommendation for the 2016 – 2017 slate of AAPL Officers / EXCOM. 

                                Pamela Feist – President

                                David Miller – 1st Vice President

                                Jeff Neimeyer – 2nd Vice President

                                Trinidad Hernandez – 3rd Vice President

                                Russell Shaw – Secretary

                                Jim Bourbeau - Treasurer

 

NAPE Report:

NAPE Houston budget & planning models have been reduced by 25% across the board with all NAPE events during this downturn.  Current expectations however for the August NAPE, compared to similar benchmarks last year, are ahead of Budget since we are only off @ 10% on Exhibitors & @ 2.5% on Sponsorships.  NAPE Houston last year came in under budget which is the result of exceptional work from the NAPE staff which has worked tirelessly to trim the fat on the annual NAPE budgets.  NAPE Denver, was December 9 -10 at the Denver Convention Center.  Although AAPL has  saw a decline in registrations in our third year from 2,559 to 1,606, an exhibitor decline from 180 to 126 and sponsorships from 127K to 93K, the AAPL Staff has reduced costs by 47% in the last year which has transformed the event from a 156K loss in 2013 to a 48K profit in 2015.  The event continues to be very well received, but considering the environment & pending the final results from this year’s event the Board is optimistic that we will continue with NAPE Denver.  Starting in 2016, NAPE Denver will occur in October which we expect will reduce conflicts and further promote attendance.  NAPE Summit was held on February 10th – 12th.  Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani was the keynote speaker for the NAPE Charities Luncheon and Richard Fisher was the keynote speaker for the Decision Maker’s Breakfast.  Although a 25% across the board reduction was expected, overall attendance was 11,300 (only a 20% reduction), exhibitors were 694 (only a 12% reduction) & sponsorships were 2,178,650 (only a 9% reduction).  Again, AAPL staff has done a tremendous job re-negotiating NAPE expenses in general but specifically has worked hard to bring down hotel rates over the next three years.  As many of you have seen, The George R Brown Convention Center in Houston is progressing on the scheduled remodeling that should be complete prior to NAPE 2017.  NAPE remains the major profit center for AAPL, bringing in 6.88 MM in gross proceeds in 2015, with 4.52 MM in net profits for AAPL.  The NAPE Operators Committee is working with the AAPL Staff and our NAPE partners to ensure that costs associated with all new Regional Expo’s are as efficient as possible as we continue to grow the NAPE Brand for our Association.  AAPL has realized an approximate 25% growth since the 2011.  At this time, no additional Regional NAPE’s are scheduled and all future NAPE expansion discussions center on the international segment of NAPE Summit and potentially a NAPE International in Calgary.

Membership / Marketing / Technology Committee Reports:

Membership currently sits at 18,276 (15,442 Active / 2203 Associate / 172 Senior / 459 Student).  Renewals for the 2016 – 2017 fiscal year will begin in April.  I encourage you to get your membership renewed as soon as possible.  The inability of our former Member Suite system to handle the ever growing demands of our Membership Renewals caused a great deal of turmoil during the 2014 renewal period but the implementation of Personify has tremendously improved the quality of our member database.  Although there continue to be some customization issues, the implementation of the new database system (Personify) is in place and the customized query’s and website interaction are starting to be rolled out but the basic functionality appear to be in place and the potential of the new system to archive and serve our membership information is much improved.  Ongoing functionality, Web Development, Mobile App (June 2016) and document sharing capability are ongoing and will be rolled out throughout 2016. One noteworthy addition is that Paul Nielsen’s LANDNEWS digital newsletter has been rolled into AAPL’s digital newsletter.  We have created and launched our new AAPL Online Store which will provide members an opportunity to purchase a plethora of items sporting the AAPL logo or the AAPL Member Mark.  AAPL staff has completed and shipped the 2016 Landmen’s Directory. For those of you that may not have seen it, you may download the NAPE App from your App Store and you will find an increasing amount of NAPE show information available through the app which will serve as a useful tool for those attending all of our NAPE events throughout the country.  AAPL’s Online Communities is a segment of Personify that has been rolled out and includes a job board and will now turn its focus toward committees and will enable these groups to collaborate on projects.  AAPL members will also have a means to request involvement on a committee based on their interest.  This will be a timely enhancement that AAPL will soon be selecting new committee chairs / members for the 2016 – 2017 fiscal year.  In addition, on the website you can now find the AAPL Ambassador Toolkit & the Tax Issues Toolkit which can be a useful tool for in-house and field landmen in educating the public on what we do as a profession and as an industry. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Education / Certification / Accreditation Committee Report:

The current model of the AAPL Education Department is to host live seminars across the country in major energy hubs as well as smaller markets where Landmen are working.  Given the economic downturn and in order to keep costs down while still delivering high quality seminars, AAPL must alter its delivery model to meet the needs of our members and provide more cost effective, flexible options.  The intention is to reduce the number of live seminars held while increasing the affordability and availability of these seminars online.  TAPL hosted an RPL / CPL Review in January and will host a JOA seminar on 4/19/16 in Tulsa.  If you want to continue seeing regular educational offerings in Tulsa please continue to let your Director and APPL know.  New seminars released in 2015 include the following: Negotiations, Title Curative, The Oil & Gas Lease and Provisions, a newly reformatted seminar on the Basics of GIS/Mapping, the Horizontal Modifications to the JOA & the new AAPL Ethics Program.  AAPL has now launched the new Ethics Program 360 Program (half day seminar) and the standalone component, America’s Landmen which is a 90 minute condensed version has been integrated into the Field Landmen Seminars, Institutes and in general by Land Managers as a standalone teaching aid.  The 2016 education calendar offerings are in mid rollout and include some new seminars on the oil & Gas Lease as well as a Basics of Petroleum Economics.  There have been 20 seminars facilitated across the country with 711 attending registrants since the December Board Meeting. 

The Certification Committee continues to review about 75 - 100 applications per month.  Certifications remain strong with 4931 active members (or 31.58%) holding certification (2292 CPL’s / 2039 RPL’s / 600 RL’s).  With approximately 1/3 of AAPL Members maintaining a designation, the Certification Committee is considering a recommendation that would require a true stair-stepped path to certification whereby applicants would need to first receive their RL & RPL designations prior to being eligible to apply for the CPL designation.  The goal in suggesting this process is to strengthen the RL & RPL designations and further AAPL’s position against federal or state licensing of Landmen.  As many of you know firsthand, and although the pass rate for the new CPL Exam is slowly climbing, it still retains an initial pass rate of less than 50%. 

The Board unanimously voted to approve Accreditation of Marietta College (Ohio).  This brings the number of AAPL Accredited Colleges to 12.  AAPL continues to operate under the policy that our position should be to maintain a high standard by which all Educational Institutions are held to

Awards Committee Report:

The AAPL Awards Committee has announced the 2016 slate of awards and TAPL did not receive any awards this year.  The Awards Committee has been encouraged to combine the existing Small / Medium / Large Awards Categories, which I believe would be a grave mistake.  I would very much like to see someone from Tulsa nominated for the Awards Committee.  If you are interested, please let me know. 

 

Treasurer’s Report:

The Treasurer’s Report is reflective of market conditions but we remain confident in our various investments.  As compared to December 31st, 2014 total assets have decreased from 34,212,385 to 30,730,618 which reflects a total decrease of 10.2%.  Expenses have increased 20.4%, largely due to the inclusion of depreciation as an expense, building repair, credit card processing fees, computer / internet expenses and contract labor costs related to the implementation of Personify and other technology initiatives and on line services designed to more effectively provide service and value to our membership.  AAPL’s investment accounts continue to be managed by Luther King. Although Luther King has done a tremendous job with our investment accounts, in part due to market corrections, we realized a 13.9% loss this quarter compared to the same period last year.  It should be noted that a significant portion of that loss is the result of the Board’s recent decision to transfer 1.1MM to the operating account as well as further paying down the line of credit used to purchase the new building. The NAPE & AAPL audits are complete and only minor housekeeping issues were raised.  

A lengthy discussion occurred surrounding the 2016 – 2017 Budget.  Dramatic cuts (20%) to the budget were proposed by the EXCOM and unanimously approved by the Board in an effort to remain as fiscally responsible as possible during this potent industry downturn.  A motion to cancel the 2017 Annual Meeting in Seattle was tabled until June 1, 2016. 

Legislative / Regulatory Report:

The Government Relations Program (KSE) along with Bloomberg Law & Bloomberg Government is masterfully tracking the progress of hundreds of legislative advances affecting our industry across all 50 states.  The AAPL Governmental Affairs Weekly Reports have been collected and archived in an online repository of past reports and we are working toward the creation of a quarterly Governmental Affairs Report to launch in Q2 2016.  We are coordinating with a Pennsylvania Lobbying firm to move forward Pennsylvania Senate Bills 147 & 148 to include clarifications on Independent Contractor designations as they relate to landmen and to prevent employee misclassification.  We are also closing watching Unauthorized Practice of Law (UPL) issues in West Virginia for possible AAPL intervention.  AAPL is involved with Oklahoma Senate Bill 213 which would impose upon county clerk’s mandatory electronic record retention & distribution which may affect title abstractor access to recorded instruments.  House Bill 2207 in Texas and efforts to raise recording fees in Michigan are also on the plate of the Leg / Reg Committee.

Forms Report:

The 1989 HZ JOA Form is complete and available through Forms-on-a-Disk (FOAD).  The 1982 HZ JOA Form revisions have been submitted to FOAD.  The new 2015 Model Form JOA is being rolled out shortly.  Following a soft rollout in November with numerous industry representatives the Board voted to approve the original JOA and following a soft rollout in November to 22 Industry and legal executives a few minor changes were approved by the board during the December meeting.  We expect to schedule numerous marketing & educational events in Q1 & Q2 of 2016.  A joint AAPL / RMMLF institute featuring the new model form JOA will be offered in the fall of 2016. As the new Forms Committee convenes a discussion on the practicality of our relationship with FOAD is evolving and will be revisited in the coming months as we consider developing our own Forms hub through our new website.

If you haven’t yet done so, I would like to encourage you to join our National Landman’s Association (AAPL) in addition to your local Association (TAPL). Not only do AAPL & TAPL offer networking, continuing education, marketing and deal making opportunities, they also actively monitor and lobby for legislative and regulatory developments across the country that affect our industry. Perhaps most importantly, all AAPL members are subject to the AAPL Code of Conduct and AAPL Code of Ethics which encourage all members of our profession to act professionally and ethically in the course of our day to day business. AAPL provides avenues of continuing education and certification for its members, all of which work to ensure to the general public’s well deserved trust as they encounter Landmen of the highest ethical and professional standards. 

This report is intended to be a general summary of the meeting and if you are interested in additional detail or have questions, suggestions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me via phone at 281-408-1467 or via e-mail at HReinmiller@VNRLLC.com so that I can more clearly describe the ongoing efforts of AAPL’s Board to serve its members and advance our industry!!

 

 

Sincerely,

                                                                                                Hamel B. Reinmiller, CPL

Hamel B. Reinmiller, CPL

AAPL Director – Region 6

 

 

Sincerely,

                                                                                           

Hamel B. Reinmiller, CPL

AAPL Director – Region 6

 

 

To visit the AAPL Home Page click here: AAPL

 

For more information on the AAPL, please contact our AAPL Director, Hamel B. Reinmiller, CPL:

 

HamelReinmiller2.jpg

       Hamel B. Reinmiller, CPL

       AAPL Director - Region VI

           Reinmiller@Titaniumep.com

           Titanium Exploration Partners, LLC

           320 South Boston

           Suite 1000

           Tulsa, OK 74103

           Phone: (918) 984-4836

           Fax: (918) 551-6899

 

 

 

 

TAPL Members,

 

In an effort to keep the our Local Associations informed of AAPL news and events, the AAPL Marketing Committee has developed the attached PowerPoint presentation which promotes educational and certification opportunities, upcoming events along with a series of video’s that you might find helpful to share with your colleagues, brokers, Land Owners and Mineral Owners.  The AAPL Board of Directors is excited to put out this information and hopes that it can be helpful to all of our members nationwide.  If there are any questions or feedback, please don’t hesitate to contact me via e-mail or phone listed below. 

 

 

 

Sincerely,

 

Hamel B. Reinmiller, CPL

AAPL Director - Revion VI