Rocky Mountain Discovery Series

An interview series with Oil & Gas Leaders

Donna Anderson

November 12, 2026

8:30 to 9:30 am

Denver Earth Resource Library 

The Rocky Mountain Discovery Series is an hour-long interview dedicated to the Rocky Mountain Association Members whose technical work and leadership have shaped the oil and gas industry across one of North America’s most significant energy regions. Each meeting features a single senior guest in a candid, in-depth conversation about the discoveries, decisions, and forces that defined their careers. Unscripted and unfiltered, the series captures the depth of their experience.

Join us for a conversation with a longtime leader in the RMAG community, Donna Anderson, you won't want to miss this one. Growing up in the oil-derrick-dotted hills of the Los Angeles Basin, she was hooked on Deep Time before she finished primary school. She began her career in geotechnical engineering in 1974, navigating an era when women were routinely told they had no place in the field or on a drill site, and turned those barriers into fuel. After earning her M.S. from UCLA in 1980, she spent over four decades in the oil and gas industry across the western U.S. and internationally, including 12 years at Mobil and nearly a decade at EOG Resources, where as a Geological Advisor from 2006 to 2015 she worked at the heart of the shale revolution — correlating thousands of wells, building basin-wide maps, and applying her speciality in sedimentary geology to unlock tight gas sand and shale resources across the Rockies. She has served as Affiliate Faculty in Geology at Colorado School of Mines, where she also earned her Ph.D., teaching field camp to the next generation of geoscientists. A Past President and Honorary Member of both RMAG and AAPG, Donna has been a fixture of the Rocky Mountain geoscience community throughout her career — and she has plenty more to say. In semi-retirement she remains restless: leading geology walks, advising on the I-70 roadcut signage project, chairing wildfire mitigation efforts in Golden, and publishing a book on the geology and mining history of Golden for the non-specialist, because, as she puts it, she has never liked to sit still.

Come hear her story in full at the Rocky Mountain Discovery Series on November 12th.

Talk Schedule: 

• 8:00 am - Doors Open - Breakfast Available
• 8:30 am - Interview Begins
• 9:15 am - Audience Q&A
• 9:30 am - Event Ends 

Registration Costs: 

• Members: $15
• Non-Member: $25 (not a member? join today!)
• Student Member: Free (not a member? email staff@rmag.org)

Refund policy:

If you need to cancel a registration for any reason, you must do so by 4:00pm on the Thursday before the event. Refunds will not be available after 4:00pm on the Thursday before the event. If you are unable to attend, your registration is transferable to another RMAG member, or if you are a non-member your registration is transferable to whomever you wish. 

Sponsorship Opportunities: 

Interested in sponsoring the series? reach out at staff@rmag.org