(ALEXANDRIA, Va.) — Dr. Steven John Leverette, vice president of technology at SBM Offshore USA, has been named as the next SNAME representative to the Offshore Technology Conference board of directors. Members of the OTC board are appointed to four-year terms by their respective society or organization. The OTC board includes 14 representatives, 12 from OTC's sponsoring societies and two from OTC's endorsing organizations. Leverette will be replacing Ed Stokes, who has served as chairman of the OTC board of directors for the last two years, and the SNAME representative for the last eight years.
Leverette has been in the offshore industry for 38 years, including deepwater development and specifically, Tension Leg Platforms. His doctorate is jointly from MIT and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Leverette's career path has included eight years with Gulf Oil Co., 10 years as head of a small deepwater engineering firm, and 20 years with SBM Offshore. He has been involved in 15 TLP and semi projects, as well as numerous studies and conceptual designs. In the early 1980s, Leverette was on the design team for the world's first TLP where he and Stokes worked together. He also was on the design teams for the first Gulf of Mexico TLP, the first mini-TLP, and the world's first deep-draft semi. He is a longtime member of the API Offshore Structures subcommittee and serves as chairman of the API RP2T Workgroup. Leverette chaired the OTC Technical Program Committee in 1992 and a member of SNAME since 1983.
The Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) is where energy professionals meet to exchange ideas and opinions to advance scientific and technical knowledge for offshore resources and environmental matters. Founded in 1969, OTC's flagship conference is held annually in Houston. OTC has expanded technically and globally with the Arctic Technology Conference, OTC Brasil and OTC Asia. As the largest oil and gas conference in the world, 2014 attendance surpassed 108,000 and the sold-out exhibition was the largest in show history at 680,025 square feet. The event had 2,568 companies representing 43 countries. International companies made up 44 percent of exhibitors. This year in 2015, the exhibition will be even larger at over 696,000 square feet (12 football fields).
