00:00:00 Speaker 1
This episode of the Energy Pipeline is sponsored by Caterpillar Oil and Gas. Since the 1930s, Caterpillar has manufactured engines for drilling, production, well service and gas compression. With more than 2100 dealer locations worldwide, Caterpillar offers customers a dedicated support team to assist with their premier power solutions.

00:00:28 Speaker 2
Welcome to the Energy Pipeline Podcast with your host KC Yost. Tune in each week to learn more about industry issues, tools, and resources to streamline and modernize the future of the industry. Whether you work in oil and gas or bring a unique perspective, this podcast is your knowledge transfer hub. Welcome to the Energy Pipeline.

00:00:54 KC Yost
Hello everyone, and welcome to this episode of the Energy Pipeline Podcast. Today we're fortunate to have Lauren Tipton and Ian Kornfeld from Young Pipeline Professionals, USA as our guests. Welcome to the Energy Pipeline Podcast.

00:01:09 Lauren Tipton
Thanks. Great to be here.

00:01:12 KC Yost
Glad to have you. Glad to have you. Before we get started talking about your organization, would each of you take a few minutes to share your background with our listeners? Lauren, let's start with you please.

00:01:22 Lauren Tipton
Sure thing. I'm Lauren Tipton and I studied industrial engineering at Oklahoma State University. Then went on to work in the regulatory compliance space in the consulting field. And in 2018, I was lucky enough to strike out on my own, and with my co-founder, form Elemental Compliance. And we are a boutique compliance consulting company and we provide oil and gas pipeline operators with services regarding audits, written procedures, jurisdiction, things like that. So that's my day job. And then on the volunteer side, I am currently serving as the vice chair of Young Pipeline Professionals in a two-year role. And before that, with YPP USA. I had done the secretary position as well as the membership engagement, and have been an active member since around 2017.

00:02:21 KC Yost
Excellent. Excellent. I bet the mega rule is keeping you quite busy in your day job.

00:02:26 Lauren Tipton
Most definitely.

00:02:29 KC Yost
Good for you. Good for you. Ian, please.

00:02:33 Ian Kornfeld
Yeah. Hello everybody. Ian Kornfeld. So I graduated with a mechanical engineering degree from Hofstra University. I started out in the aerospace industry working for a smaller company called Frequency Electronics, doing 3D design, and moved thereafter into construction and been there ever since. So spent the last seven years at National Grid with my current role being regional engineering manager for our gas transmission engineering design group in downstate New York. I've worked on large scale capital projects, improvements, anything from 30 inch diameter, high pressure pipelines to regulator stations and heaters in a pretty urban environment. Anything from downtown Brooklyn all the way through our Long Island territory to tip of Montauk. And through my time here, been progressing through my studies, if you will. Besides the degree, I am a professional engineer in New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. I have my PMP certification, my Institute for Asset Management certification, and working on a few others currently. I started with YPP only a couple of years ago actually, as the corporate support lead. And as Laura mentioned, we have some two year roles now currently in the secretary role for YPP. And I guess a fun fact about myself, I'm an avid baker and through COVID actually started a little baking company on the side.

00:03:58 KC Yost
Cool. What do you bake?

00:04:02 Ian Kornfeld
Bits of odds and ends stuff. Things you won't normally see in a typical bakery. Started out doing more like a sweet bread, but creative cookies, cupcakes, things that folks really wouldn't see on a day to day. So it keeps everybody on their toes.

00:04:18 KC Yost
Cool, cool. I grew up in North Central West Virginia where pepperoni rolls were very popular. Yes. That's baking to me. I love pepperoni rolls. Yeah. So let's help a little bit out with recruiting for a national grid, if you don't mind. How far away is Bethpage Black from your office? Could you tell me?

00:04:40 Ian Kornfeld
Sure. The Melville office that I'm based out, which is part of our downstate New York territory, we are probably two miles down the road from Bethpage Golf Course. Bethpage Black is probably the most well known due to its massive events there. I have not played it myself. I'm not that good, but I have played every other course there. So...

00:05:03 KC Yost
If there's an engineer out there that is an avid golfer that wants to move to the Northeast and you have an opening, Ian's your man.

00:05:12 Ian Kornfeld
By all means. Happy to talk.

00:05:15 KC Yost
Excellent. Excellent. Very good. Very good. So let's get into the organization. YPP, that's Young Pipeline Professionals. YPP USA is actually part of an international umbrella organization. Am I saying that right?

00:05:36 Lauren Tipton
Yeah, correct. It's technically a forum, but I think those are synonyms in this case.

00:05:44 KC Yost
So in looking on your website, it looked to me like there's a YPP Malaysia, there's a YPP Canada, there's a YPP all over the world. Do you guys communicate regularly?

00:06:00 Lauren Tipton
Yes, we do. So those YPP organizations are part of the Young Pipeliners International or YPI Forum, which is made up of YPP groups from all over the world. We hold quarterly meetings. We have a dedicated work group lead who manages those relationships, and their purpose is to share knowledge, share best practices between the Young Pipeline Professionals groups, and to help establish new YPP groups in countries that are interested in joining.

00:06:36 KC Yost
So while we talk about that a little bit, if you don't mind me asking a question that wasn't on my script, but I have been able to work around the world, and dealt with a number of pipeline design issues in a number of countries. It seems like Canada has, its Z662. We have our CFR192s and 195s. You go to different countries, they have their different regulations, but at the end of the day, they all seem to come back down to looking at B318 and B314 as the basis for most designs. Do you guys get into conversations like that about specification standardization and the differences between the regulatory issues and that type of thing?

00:07:32 Lauren Tipton
We've definitely had those kinds of conversations. For example, the winner of one of our awards was the current chair of YPP Malaysia. And so he came into Houston for the Pipeline Pigging and Integrity Management Conference earlier this year. And we got to have some more casual conversations, just meeting and exchanging ideas and talking about the regulatory landscape in our different countries. So whenever those opportunities present themselves, we definitely take them to discuss differences and similarities. Right now though, the YPI organization holds quarterly meetings, and mostly they share best practices on how to run their various organizations and recruit more members to have the common goal of building the next generation of pipeliners in all these different countries.

00:08:24 KC Yost
Good, good. By the way, just to be clear, this is called YPP. What is the maximum age limit?

00:08:31 Lauren Tipton
Yes. To join, you have to be 35 years of age or younger, but if you join in the year that you turn 35, you get an extra five years. So you can stick around until you're 40. So 35 years is the cut-off. But it is free to join. So we certainly encourage anybody who's interested. The only other requirements are that you work or seek work within the pipeline industry, or we even have a student member option where students who are pursuing a degree that would be applicable to the pipeline industry, are welcome to join as well.

00:09:12 KC Yost
Good, good. Well, when you had the word young in there, I knew I didn't qualify, but I thought I better go ahead and ask them to be clear. And this is really good stuff. So now you have different chapters throughout the US, right?

00:09:29 Lauren Tipton
Yes, we do. We have-

00:09:31 KC Yost
Do you have an idea how many?

00:09:32 Lauren Tipton
We have four.

00:09:34 KC Yost
Four. And where are they located?

00:09:37 Lauren Tipton
They're in Houston, Texas, Atlanta, Georgia, Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Columbus, Ohio. And as you might suspect, Houston is definitely the largest chapter with the most pipeline operators than service providers located there.

00:09:53 KC Yost
Oh, shout out to my hometown. Thank you. Okay, so we're going to be talking specifically about the YPP USA today, right?

00:10:03 Lauren Tipton
Yes.

00:10:04 KC Yost
So, very good. And the four chapters that go along with it. So when was YPP USA formed?

00:10:10 Lauren Tipton
It was founded in 2015 as a nonprofit organization.

00:10:17 KC Yost
Okay. So this was after the YPI organization existed, and you just fell underneath the umbrella, or was it formed separate from others and the YPI came later?

00:10:34 Lauren Tipton
To be totally honest, I'm not sure which came first. I don't know. I think it was YPP USA and then YPI came not long after and maybe bound us all together, but that could be incorrect.

00:10:51 KC Yost
Well, I'll look it up. Good stuff. Good stuff. Very good. Very good. So let's talk about your membership, YPP USA, your membership. How large are your groups?

00:11:07 Lauren Tipton
Yeah, so at the last count, which was earlier this month, we were sitting at 870 members. And I was actually looking at our graph that we present to our board each quarter, and I think in 2018, we were sitting at 52 members. So we have certainly grown a lot. Those members are a mix of pipeline operators and service providers, which is reflected here today with Ian being at an operator and myself being a service provider. So we try to reflect that in our membership, in our leadership. So-

00:11:43 KC Yost
ah-

00:11:43 Lauren Tipton
Oh, go ahead.

00:11:44 KC Yost
Great point. Before I forget that, is there something in the bylaws that requires a certain number or percentage of membership to be from operating companies, and that's why you have Ian on?

00:11:55 Lauren Tipton
No, no. We like Ian. We just like him. No, I don't think we have a bylaw that requires that. It's just a best practice we try to keep, because pipeline operators and service providers have a lot of overlapping interests, and so we try to provide things that would be of interest to both folks.

00:12:17 KC Yost
I've got to tell you, that makes perfect sense to me. I was heavily involved with the Southern Gas Association for years and years, actually served on the board of directors for two different terms, and I always looked at the conferences and meetings as a great way for us as service providers to talk to the operators, and the operators to share their concerns with us away from the office, and have a nice dialogue, a nice conversation and build that rapport. Because at the end of the day, this industry is built off of relationships, and having that is real key. So kudos to you guys for having operators and service providers put together in this way. Start communicating in your generation so that when you're my age, you guys will be old, old friends that you've known for 30 years, and that's only good for the industry. Can't be bad. It's all good.

00:13:24 Lauren Tipton
Absolutely, absolutely.

00:13:26 KC Yost
Good for you.

00:13:26 Lauren Tipton
And our board of directors is similar. We try to reflect our mix in our leadership. It's something, I'm not sure if that's written down anywhere, but it is something that we keep in mind when we're selecting leadership.

00:13:41 KC Yost
Perfect. Perfect. So what is the purpose of the organization? As we talked about networking and that type of thing, what is the purpose?

00:13:52 Ian Kornfeld
Yeah, so YPP USA is really an organization that's dedicated to developing and empowering emerging leaders in the pipeline and energy industry. We realize that the pipeline industry is changing, right? As companies need to adjust to really what's being thrown at them every day is something different now. But our mission is really to encompass several key objectives. So we want to accept the transfer of duty for the care of the pipeline industry. So really just the knowledge transfer that we were talking about earlier. We want to educate the young professionals. The pipeline industry seems simple from afar, but it's really intricate, especially when you start getting to code and just best practice across multiple states and even countries, as we mentioned with YPI. We want to create leadership opportunities, really cultivate and generate the skills that are needed for the next generation of leaders. We want to foster those relationships, build networking, pretty much that supports any advancement in innovation with all these younger professionals coming into the industry. And we want to promote diversity and inclusion to ensure a wide range of perspectives and ideas. Everything that we're looking to do, these objectives are all really trying to just have a broader goal in mind of the community of knowledge that we have, a skilled and diverse workforce, and really getting these young professionals prepared to lead in the future for whatever the energy industry may hold.

00:15:20 KC Yost
Good, good. Do you have some specific tasks that you're performing with each one of those different goals that you have outlined or your purposes that you have outlined? Do you have any specific examples of what you're doing in those areas?

00:15:38 Ian Kornfeld
Yeah. We actually restructured a bit from a leadership perspective last year, and that's why we have some two-year roles now, where we have specific work groups we call them, that are leading the efforts. And these work groups are comprised of all volunteers, young energy professionals that are really looking to kind of take everything to the next level, and really make sure that their difference can be shared with others. So when we talk about, and I'm sure we'll be talking about this a little more as we go through too, but the work groups are handling anything from webinars to certain industry events and our relationships with all industry partners. We have a D & I group that we ran some great collaborative efforts with multiple companies and leaders from those companies to talk about certain D & I topics, constantly leveraging whether it's our resources, contacts, and all these industry partners to take that networking part in, and whether it's some sort of gathering, happy hour, some sort of event for the holidays or in general, these industry events that are happening, whether it's symposiums, whether it's operators come together, and things of that sort. So our work groups are doing tremendous amount of really day to day conversation, networking, and trying to promote each one of these within and take that back to the team. And that's how we will come to some of these other discussions as we'll talk about, of promoting these events and working through them.

00:17:14 KC Yost
Good, good. Just to mention in talking about that, David Gregory, who's one of your members, and the person that introduced the three of us, emailed me last week and got me to sign up or apply to become a mentor in your group. So I filled that form out last week, and hopefully get to visit with a few people about pipelining over the last... Oh my, June will be 48 years that I've been doing this. So with any luck, I'll be able to talk to some people and pass on some things that I've run into over the years. But anyway, that sounds very exciting. Now you all do some charitable work with the organization?

00:18:09 Lauren Tipton
Our focus has primarily been educational, though we do have future goals for charitable events at the chapter level. Like Ian mentioned, we are fully volunteer-run. So every new initiative that we put out there requires someone to take charge and lead it, but that is on our horizon. Oh, go ahead.

00:18:31 KC Yost
No, I was just going to say I, again, reference back to the Pipeliners Association here in Houston. I remember the first golf tournament that I attended back in 1977. I believe there were three dozen of us at the old Tenwood Country Club. It was owned by Tennessee Gas Pipeline and Tenwood. Anyway, we raised $500 and passed out a$ 500 scholarship in 1977. I'm on the board of directors here, and just authorized, or the board just authorized passing out a million dollars worth of scholarships this year. So my point is, how do you eat an elephant? You take one bite at a time. But take your time, and with that strong foundation, I think you guys are absolutely heading in the right direction, and will have a great opportunity to build the organization and help out with scholarships and that type of things later on.

00:19:38 Lauren Tipton
We do have a couple of awards that we participate with, and those awards have not necessarily scholarship money, but some benefits that come with them. So those are probably the closest that we get right now. But we do encourage our membership to apply for those, put their name out there and see if they can't win a ticket to, for example, PRCI's conference through our symposium. White Paper Competition is the one that comes to mind right now, but they do have some benefits attached to it. So those are always great to see our members going out for those and winning those.

00:20:17 KC Yost
Oh, that's excellent. Very exciting. Very exciting. And giving people that encouragement to participate in things like that is very, very good.

00:20:29 Lauren Tipton
Absolutely.

00:20:30 KC Yost
So now you mentioned you had meetings, or you have four chapters in the US. You said Atlanta, Houston, did you say OKC?

00:20:40 Lauren Tipton
Tulsa.

00:20:41 KC Yost
Or was it Tulsa?

00:20:42 Lauren Tipton
Tulsa and Columbus.

00:20:43 KC Yost
And Columbus? How often do these chapters have meetings? Do they have regular meetings?

00:20:56 Ian Kornfeld
Yeah, so the chapters do regularly meet. I would say it's based on a need, if you will, but we do require chapters, there are some bylaws, if you will, for the chapters that we try to get the individuals to meet as frequently as necessary, but frequent enough where they can perform at least one social and at least one educational event a year. We try to dot those in with the other meetings that we're holding, obviously, not to overload anybody who is volunteering. But something like Houston, which has a much larger member base than some others, it's a little easier to get the groups together to do those educational and/ or charitable and/ or social events. But yeah, we do try at least one per type for each chapter. And then they are meeting very frequently with the entire team, with entire leadership team as we have restructured our meeting approach, where bi-weekly, we meet with all the leadership. On the off weeks we meet with just the core officers, if you will, and those meetings, we pretty much run through the host of topics, anything from what the webinar schedule is to our D & I efforts, to the symposium planning, corporate support, you name it, we're running through everything with the respective leads at that time.

00:22:23 KC Yost
Good. And before we started recording, we had discussed that you guys have reached out to the PYP, Pipeline Young Professionals, here in Houston for joint meetings or joint activities anyway, right?

00:22:40 Ian Kornfeld
Oh, yes. Yeah. We frequently have members who are engaged in multi-faceted entities across the industry, and that could be anything from other inaudible organizations to industry partners. So whether it's another industry, local chapter, if you will, or local community like that, or something a little more, I guess, broad, like API. We have members who are engaged and active in a lot of those and often have a lot of opportunities with the relationships that we foster to get that experience that maybe those individuals otherwise wouldn't have. So through SGA, I know there's a big initiative to have a YPP member sit on one or each of their, I guess, initiative groups, right? It can be anything from maybe D & I to codes to things of that sort. A lot of great work has been done with companies like API and more recently Avatar, which is a think tank operation for the industry. So the networking that the leadership team and the members bring offers further opportunities to work together and coincide with a lot of other organizations, small or large, really.

00:23:55 KC Yost
So events, YPP has some pretty nice events, get togethers nationally over each year? Do you?

00:24:08 Ian Kornfeld
Yeah, we hold them at various levels. So as just mentioned, the local chapters organize events throughout the year, often educational and more of a social event as well. Just paid in some golf outings, some fishing tournaments here and there. The more formal gatherings would be conferences and trade shows that are supported, or that we support members in going to. So any chance we get, we're looking to engage with the industry in a relaxed setting to foster the relationships and opportunities. Oftentimes, YPP members have the privilege of representing the organization, YPP at these conferences, national and international, at times. They can participate in panel discussions about the young professionals industry or maybe some more technical topics at hand as well. We've also had events hosted by operators and manufacturing facilities that are typically not open to the public. And again, that's through some of the networking and just interactions that we have. But really the highlight of YPP's event calendar is the annual symposium. So that is our largest and flagship event. This year's symposium is scheduled for May 16th in Houston, Texas, with a theme of embracing innovation and energy evolution. The symposiums, we plan for a multi-day event, and it's a gathering of hundreds of young professionals and industry leaders who are discussing current topics. This year, we have anything from the state of the industry to future fuels underneath the topic of gas horizons, innovations in gas, and even inline inspection, which is always a favorite of young professionals. The second day workshop that we run is typically varying. This year we have a kind of impact of early career decisions and engaging in various leaderships. We've had companies host second day's events through some of their testing facilities. And we really do try whether symposium, or just in general, to have a very comprehensive approach, rotating webinars and events that individuals can really be engaged and active on throughout the year.

00:26:15 KC Yost
So tell me again, Houston, May 16, you say?

00:26:20 Ian Kornfeld
May 16th. Correct.

00:26:22 KC Yost
Okay. And where will it be held?

00:26:26 Ian Kornfeld
It is held at the Marriott Marquis in downtown Houston.

00:26:29 KC Yost
Oh, very nice.

00:26:31 Ian Kornfeld
More information is up on our website. So for those who are interested.

00:26:35 KC Yost
Okay, well, actually that's a great thing to talk about right now, contact information and your website. How could someone who hears this podcast and is interested in joining YPP, how can they get in touch with you?

00:26:52 Ian Kornfeld
Yeah, sure. So obviously the main focus point is our YPP USA website, which is yppusa.org. But we have members across the board through... LinkedIn is probably our number two-way to reach out if individuals, whether it's through our YPP USA page or you see individuals on there. We are working on hopefully identifying YPP leadership a little bit better for folks to reach out to. But our website has our generic email, which is monitored regularly, and for any further information, pretty much reach out on there and see what events we have upcoming and more about the symposium.

00:27:34 KC Yost
Excellent. Excellent. Okay. I've run out of questions. Anything else you guys want to add? Lauren, Ian?

00:27:42 Lauren Tipton
I would say if you are hearing this podcast before the symposium, we'd really encourage you to sign up. It can either be one day or two days. It's only a $200 ticket. It's in Houston, and it's educational, education focus. We are very lucky to have our keynote speaker as Mr. Stan Chapman, the COO and Executive VP of TT Energy. We're having... ASME is our flagship sponsor, and we are hosting the day after event at ADV Integrity. We have a white paper competition sponsored by PRCI, with tons of fantastic sponsors. There's more than I can list here. We're very, very grateful to them and to all of the folks who have worked so hard for the symposium to become a reality and just grow exponentially year over year. So we would love to see you there. You don't have to be a member to attend. You can be just someone interested in the transfer of knowledge to the next generation of young pipeliners.

00:28:43 KC Yost
Oh, so a 70-year-old could attend.

00:28:46 Lauren Tipton
Absolutely. And get involved in our mentorship program.

00:28:49 KC Yost
Sweet.

00:28:49 Lauren Tipton
That's my plug.

00:28:55 KC Yost
So if I apply twice, that would be 35, and I'd be good for another four years. Huh? There you go. I like that. I like that. Good deal. Good deal. Well, thanks, Lauren.

00:29:05 Lauren Tipton
Yeah.

00:29:06 KC Yost
Ian, anything you want to add or we good?

00:29:08 Ian Kornfeld
Yeah, no, I guess I would just say that I only joined YPP a couple years back, and what I've found through YPP has been more than I could ever expected, I would say. It's been... The networking alone, the connections you make... It is very tough for young professionals to sometimes get involved in the industry, whether it's... Your technical knowledge maybe is not there yet. Your understanding is still growing and you're building the basis for your career. But more importantly, to know that there's other individuals out there that are in the same mindset, that are maybe struggling like you to find the right space. Where should you be? Who should you talk to? And YPP really opens the doors for that. The wide-ranging membership from smaller companies to larger companies across the US, and the mentoring program, has mentioned many times, really hit home to experience through talking to others and meeting others. And it's been just a great opportunity that I encourage everybody here on my team and throughout the company to utilize and really engage in. Because to have a successful career, you really have to be engaged, and you really have to want to learn and spread and be that next generation of what's to come.

00:30:35 KC Yost
I think what you guys are doing is wonderful. I think it's fantastic that are the YPPs, the PYPs of the world out there that are encouraging and giving young pipeliners an opportunity to learn from other young pipeliners and some of our old guys as well on how to do this job. It's become much more difficult than, well, truly much more difficult than it was when my grandfather started pipelining back in 1919. So it's amazing just to look at the technology and the advances that have been made in the 40 plus years that I've been in the industry is amazing. So you guys having this organization that allows the younger people to have an asset in their hip pocket to learn these things and to develop relationships, I think is wonderful and fantastic. So I'm just tickled to death that you guys took the time to visit with us today. That's really great. That's really great.

00:31:46 Lauren Tipton
Yeah. Thank you for having us.

00:31:49 KC Yost
That's super. So again, if anyone would like to learn more about the Young Pipeline Professionals, USA, you can find them on the web at yppusa.org, as Ian had said earlier, yppusa.org. So thanks to all of you for tuning in to this episode of the Energy Pipeline Podcast, sponsored by Caterpillar Oil and Gas. If you have any questions, comments, or ideas for podcast topics, feel free to email me at kc.yost@oggn.com. I also want to thank my producer, Anastasia Willison-Duff, and everyone at the Oil and Gas Global Network for making this podcast possible. Find out more about other OGGN podcasts at oggn.com. This is KC Yost saying goodbye for now. Have a great week and keep that energy flowing through the pipeline.

00:32:43 Speaker 2
Come back next week for another episode of the Energy Pipeline, a production of the Oil and Gas Global Network. To learn more, go to oggn.com.