2020 NAEM EHS and Sustainability Management Forum
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Sandy Stash, Vice President, EHS; Talisman Energy Inc.

Sandy Stash

Over her 28 year career in the oil and gas and hard rock and coal mining industries, Sandy Stash has been the go-to person within her organization for solving difficult problems. Starting with her successful oversight of the closure of Anaconda Company businesses across North America, including several of the largest Superfund sites in the US, Sandy developed a reputation as a collaborative problem-solver, frequently managing multiple constituencies and conflicting interests in pursuit of mutually beneficial solutions. Sandy has been called fearless by colleagues and community leaders for her commitment to open and transparent collaboration. She has a strong belief that transparency leads to trust and has seen its value in depolarizing difficult situations and in creating and maintaining strong, long-lasting relationships with community leaders, industry colleagues and regulators. Sandy 's credibility with internal and external stakeholders has enabled her to identify and implement creative community-supported solutions.

 

In her current role as Global VP Health, Safety, Environment, and Operational Integrity at Talisman Energy, Sandy is focused internally on building a strong global team with a robust HSE/OI management framework. By drawing on regional strengths and focusing on sharing of best practices, Sandy is building a system with broad global support. By focusing on knowledge transfer, Sandy is building enhanced organizational capacity for strong HSE/OI management. Sandy spent many years representing business on controversial natural resource, public health and environmental issues with the general public, national and local media, and local, state and national governments. A recent challenge was the oversight and direction of BP's response to federal and State of Alaska regulatory compliance concerns in the wake of the largest oil spill in Alaska since the Exxon Valdez. In her role as Vice President for Regulatory Affairs, Compliance and Ethics for BP Alaska, Sandy managed Congressional investigations in addition to regulatory and enforcement inquiries, spearheaded quick resolution of potential liabilities, and minimized government levied compensatory damages.

 

A petroleum engineer by training Sandy spent her early career as one of the first women to work as a drilling engineer and drilling rig foreman at ARCO locations across North America. These roles enabled her to build strong technical knowledge of field operations and provided unique insights into the challenges of management-front line labor relations. Sandy's subsequent work in managing several of the largest hard rock mine cleanups and natural resource damage lawsuits in the US broadened her experience to include all operational, legal, strategic planning, financial, and government and media affairs aspects of the business. When BP decided to begin operations in Russia, Sandy was asked to serve as the Vice President of Health, Safety and the Environment (HSE) for TNK-BP, the largest privately held oil and gas producer in Russia. In this role, she was accountable for all aspects of HSE – including the introduction of international standards - for a newly formed Anglo-Russian company. From her base in Moscow, she led a functional organization of 1000 people across Russia and the Ukraine. Sandy's natural energy and enthusiasm and her ability to build teams from the ground up and inspire new ways of doing things made Sandy particularly well suited for this type of challenging international work. She is most proud of the success of the individuals on her staff – and the role she was able to play in coaching and mentoring them.

 

She has also served on several boards of directors including the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, the International Women's Forum (IWF), the Montana Tech Foundation (as Chairman) and the Institute for Sustainable Communities (ISC). She also was appointed to serve on several prestigious state and national committees working to improve government and regulations. This extensive work with community and government based organizations allowed Sandy to further foster her strong belief in the power of public-private partnerships – and the necessity of these types of partnerships in today's business environment. Sandy is a graduate of the Colorado School of Mines and holds PE licenses in both Colorado and Montana. Sandy was honored by the Colorado School of Mines in 2005 as a Distinguished Medalist and by Montana Tech as its 2000 Commencement key note speaker and its 2001 Outstanding Community Leader. Sandy is married to Rob Provan and has two step daughters, Brittany and Mallory.

 

 

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