You might have met some of our team at tradeshows or their face will be familiar from a Teams call, you may recognise a name from an email, or there may be people you have never heard of at all. To get to know them, we’re inviting you to step behind the Petrosys and Interica logos with us for a brief chat with the knowledgeable and wonderful people that make up our global team.
In honor of International Women’s Day, we caught up with Jenny Maher, Senior Solutions Engineer for Petrosys & Interica, to find out more about her experiences working in the energy industry and how she got started.
Hi Jenny, let’s jump right in – You went to university to study Geology?
Yes, that’s right. I studied Geology at Durham University and then went on to do a Masters in Mining and Minerals Engineering at Leicester Uni.
Was Geology always something that you wanted to study?
I’ve always been interested in geology. I like the outdoors and I was always collecting rocks and minerals and things like that from a young age. When I went to college they had a geology A Level course – which actually wasn’t available everywhere – I had my other 2 A levels in chemistry and biology and I needed a 3rd one, so thought, I’ll take geology, as I knew I’d be interested in it.
So, it was quite serendipitous then?
Yeah, it was and then I just decided to carry on with it. My teachers were all very enthusiastic and so it made it much better to learn from people who had a real passion for geology.
After graduating from University where has your career path taken you?
I guess, initially, when I left university I worked in some IT roles and then that led to a position with a small company in London called Petris. They were working on a solution they had developed for Well Data Management. They were eventually purchased by Halliburton which is how I ended up there.
I had a few different positions there but significantly I got the opportunity to go and work in the Middle East in Oman onsite for PDO. It was a really big project and I ended up being there for about 4 years.
I then came back to the UK and eventually went to work with Interica specifically on the Interica OneView Software. IOV has connectors to many of the industry standard applications used in both Well and Seismic Data Management and includes many applications which I was already familiar with. So it was a good fit.
You lived in Oman for quite a while – you must have liked it?
Yes, it was great. I loved working with so many different people and had loads of opportunities to go and work in other countries in the Middle East.
The travel aspect was always something that really drew me to work in the Oil and Gas industry and I’ve been able to work overseas and meet people from other cultures – all been made possible by my career.
There haven’t always been many women working in the Oil and Gas industry – how do you see that as having changed from when you first started out?
When I first started studying there were no other girls in my geology class and then only 3 women doing the masters course at uni. Now you see more and more women working in IT and technical roles. Even when I go back to other countries to visit clients there so many more women across the industry working in tech and science. It’s really good to see.
You’ve been at Interica for a few years now, and you mentioned working with the Interica OneView application. So, can you tell us, what does a typical workday look like for you? Is there such a thing?
[Laughs] I’m not sure there is such a thing as a typical day. But yes, I’ve been at Interica for a few years, just over 5. What does a day look like? Well, I’d normally work on client projects first – they would always take priority. So, whatever customers we have scheduled for an upgrade would happen first. I might need to access a customer site via remote access or schedule a meeting with the clients to do desktop-sharing sessions. I’d probably have a few internal meetings with colleagues too.
Other things I get involved in are things like internal testing of the software – so testing new Interica OneView releases and new connector functionality, logging of development requests as well as training for customers. So, it really can be quite varied.
I’d also work on our technical documents and collaborate with other team members around the globe on projects when necessary.
What piece of advice would you give a younger you or anyone starting out in this industry?
I think I’d probably say make sure to continue your professional development – any sort of training that comes your way. I’ve done lots of courses and even some free ones that are available via LinkedIn on certain things that I’ve been interested in which might be outside of what your role is currently. Learn as much as you can and push yourself forward and try to keep up to date with current changes and trends in the industry.
Before you go – tell us what you are looking forward to this year?
Well, more travel for sure. I’m planning another trip back to Oman which will be nice to catch up with people and see some of our customers. It’s an area of the world that I really like, and we have good relationships with our customers out there.
Travel is obviously important to you – if you could go anywhere, where would you pick?
I’d go to the Galapagos Islands. I’d go to see all the sea life, yeah, I’d really like to go there. If I’m being honest, I have a few bucket list places – I’d also like to go to Hawaii to see the volcanoes. I’m going to Tenerife soon actually to see the volcanoes there. More rocks.