2025 Board of Directors Election Results
The 2025 SPEE Board Election has concluded, and the results are in! The membership has elected three new Board Members who will take their seats in January 2025 for a three-year term, concluding in December 2027. The new Board Members elected are:
- Position 1 – James Sauseda
- Position 2 – Oscar Valbuena
- Position 3 – Todd Brooker
We wish to thank the SPEE Members who ran for election. SPEE Board members represent the Society as a whole, generating, defining, executing, and supporting various initiatives for growth and progression of the Society. It is the active participation of the membership that continues to make this society highly respected across the industry. We are grateful for the participation of those that voted.
Thank you,
Attila Szabo, 2024 Past President & Nominating Committee Chair
Position 1
James Sauseda
James Sauseda has served as chairman of the SPEE Oklahoma chapter since 2021 and began serving on the Oklahoma board in 2020. He has successfully navigated the post Covid journey by hosting virtual webinars in conjunction with in person luncheons to maintain a healthy attendance. He has participated in the annual meetings for the past 3 years and is a member of the SPEE Monograph 6 committee. James is now looking to take his leadership to the national board to continue the SPEE legacy to the next generation of Petroleum Engineers.
James currently operates as the vice president of Cosmo Energy, a family office that originated in 2010. Cosmo’s primary focus is portfolio management, royalty acquisitions, and non-operated working interest. He has been with the company since graduating from the University of Oklahoma in 2014 with a degree in Petroleum Engineering. The beginning of James’ career at Cosmo Energy revolved around building mineral management and economic evaluation databases, processes, tools, and automations. He was also responsible for managing Cosmo’s reserves, as well as the company’s reserves-based loan. Since James’ promotion to Vice President of Engineering in 2017, he has underwritten over $100MM of acquisition, divestiture, and non-operated opportunities. His engineering practices and fundamentals have allowed Cosmo to make sound decisions regarding capital deployment in a high market price environment.
James is passionate about evolving technology and building efficiencies continuously over time. He was an early integrator of PHDwin Version 3 and became exceptionally proficient, especially in the minerals and royalties niche. His efforts and expertise resulted in an invitation to present at PHDwin Week in 2021 and 2022.
In addition to his continued work at Cosmo, James has begun two new ventures in 2024. He is a Co-Founder of Legacy Mineral Management and a general partner for a $20MM fund focused on PDP royalty acquisitions.
James and his wife Halie live in Edmond, Oklahoma, with their three young daughters.
Position 2
Oscar Valbuena
Oscar is a Petroleum Engineer with over 30 years of experience (Universidad de América, 1993) with a Graduate Diploma in Finance (Universidad del Rosario, 1998), a Master of Science in Petroleum Engineering (University of Texas at Austin, 2007), and an MBA in Oil & Gas Management (Heriot-Watt University, 2020).
He has a strong background in reservoir engineering and assets development, with proficiency in reservoir management, characterization, 3D modelling, numerical reservoir simulation and enhanced oil recovery. Extensive experience in evaluation and integration of long-term field depletion plans, project economics, portfolio management, M&A, and new ventures.
With over 20 years of experience in this area, Oscar has expertise in reserves evaluation and reporting under SEC, PRMS, and NI 51-101 guidelines; leadership in defining and implementing corporate reserves processes, complemented with own training programs in the subject.
Oscar started his professional career in Ecopetrol, the Colombian national oil company, and has had the opportunity to work for Schlumberger, Petrobras, Sinochem, Pacific Rubiales, and Frontera Energy, an independent Canadian O&G company with operations in Latin America and Guyana, where He is currently the Director of Reserves and Development Technical Support, being responsible for the corporate reserves/resources process, and, the processes of reservoir characterization and modelling and field depletion plans evaluation and definition. During his career, he has evaluated assets in oil and gas basins around Colombia, Ecuador, Perú, Brazil, US-GoM, and Guyana.
Oscar is affiliated to SPEE since 2021, being one of the founding members of the Latin America chapter and current Chairman, having as main goals to give continuity to the growth of the chapter and add value by supporting the materialization of the objectives of the SPEE, especially those related to the definition of best practices, professional growth of affiliates and education of the society on issues related to asset evaluation.
Oscar is a persevering person who enjoys traveling, sharing with family, and undertaking new personal and professional challenges with excellence and passion. He lives in Colombia and considers himself very fortunate to share life with his wife, Alba, and his daughters, Valeria and Isabella.
Position 3
Todd Brooker
Todd believes in educating the world on the importance of hydrocarbons to societies and spends much of his time participating in conferences, meetings, and other events to not only develop business leads but also to engage in deep conversation to spread and gain knowledge. It is a pivotal time regarding the future of the oil and gas industry, and he feels that the SPEE organization can play a vital role in crafting the long-term narrative on reserves evaluations, ethical standards, and public education. Because of this, Todd would welcome the opportunity to serve on the SPEE Board of Directors and provide support to the organization in the areas of most need.
Todd is based in Austin, Texas, and is President of Cawley, Gillespie & Associates, Inc. (CG&A), a petroleum consulting firm specializing in reservoir engineering, with three Texas offices in Fort Worth, Houston, and Austin. He joined the firm in 1992 as a reservoir engineer and was promoted over the decades into various roles of increasing responsibility, becoming President in 2017. After almost a decade working in the Fort Worth headquarters of CG&A, Todd opened the Austin office in 2001 and grew the client base as well as expanded to 15 personnel in Austin.
On a day-to-day basis, Todd is responsible for reserve and economic evaluations, fair market valuations, expert reporting and testimony, field/reservoir studies, pipeline resource assessments, field development planning, acquisition/divestiture analysis, and business development. His reserve reports are routinely used for public company U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) disclosures. His experience includes significant projects in both conventional and unconventional resources in every major North American producing basin and abroad, including oil and gas shale plays, coalbed methane fields, waterfloods, CO2 floods, and complex, faulted structures.
Prior to joining CG&A, Todd worked in Gulf of Mexico (GoM) drilling and production engineering at Chevron USA. Based in New Orleans, Louisiana, Todd started his career in the shallow GoM waters supervising wellbore repairs and production restoration in mature oil and gas fields utilizing contracted mobile jack-up rigs and crews. His offshore rig supervision work progressed to deeper waters and drilling operations, upsized scheduling and procurement, and increasingly intense drilling decisions and situations. Following his offshore efforts, Todd moved into a new role as Production Engineer focused on maximizing production in a mature, shallow GoM field.
Todd graduated with honors from the University of Texas at Austin in 1989 with a B.S. degree in Petroleum Engineering. He is a registered Professional Engineer in the State of Texas (License #83462), and a member of the Society of Petroleum Evaluation Engineers (since 2018), the Society of Petroleum Engineers (since 1989), and the Independent Petroleum Association of America (since 2009). He and Liza, his wife of 31 years, reside in Austin, Texas, and have three daughters.
