Mike Carlin introduced our guest speaker, Dr Bob Schulz, who is a professor with the Haskayne School of Business at the University of Calgary, where he has taught since 1973. He is referred to as "Dr. Bob" by his students.

Dr. Bob has received 21 awards for outstanding teaching, including "Top 10" from among 39,000 professors across Canada. For his outstanding service, he was selected as the first recipient of the Order of the University of Calgary. He holds four degrees including an Engineering degree form Notre Dame and a PhD in Business Administration from the Ohio State University.

He is on several boards involved with long-term planning. Mike asked us to welcome Bob and enjoy his presentation on business in the year ahead.

Dr. Schulz passed out summaries of his presentation for us to follow and review at our leisure. Your scribes will only present the highlights and if any one wants a copy we have it in PDF form and can send it to you.

1. 2010 fits into decade(s) long trends, including look-backs - who knows what will happen and near-misses.
2. 2010 - the year ahead - a continuation of the trends that we have seen in the past.
3. We are already here with several of the trends.
4. Start of new trends.
5. Short-run - 1 year forecasts:
   • oil at US$80.00 per barrel due to economic growth in China and India
   • natural gas at C$5.50 due to weaknesses in the US shale gas and Canadian Montney Play
   • $C close to par with $US
   • Calgary economy about level but with high downtown office vacancies
   • Greater purchase of energy assets by the Chinese, Middle East and Europe
   • Provincial budget shortfall of between 7 - 9 B$
   • increased corporate stress due to all the new reporting requirements

Dan Doherty thanked Dr Schulz and presented him with our Boltman. Dan said that Dr. Bob still shows the same enthusiasm energy that he did when Dan first met him in 1974.

reported by Pauline and Garth Evans