David Coman: making technology lean and elegant

Eight years ago he moved from academia and art history to Devon’s IT team

BY LIZ BESTIC FOR GREENING OF OIL

The art world’s loss was information technology’s gain when 43-year-old David Coman decided on a career change in his mid-30s. David switched from the world of academia and art history to a job as a senior technical analyst at Devon Energy in Calgary, Alberta, eight years ago and can honestly say he has never looked back.

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“It was a strange sequence of events which led me to become a systems analyst,” David says wryly. “Academia was a path of least resistance for me because I come from an incredibly academic family. My dad was a professor at the University of Toronto and my mum’s dad was also a professor, so it just seemed that my career path was all mapped out for me. I did well at university and after I got my MA in Art History I spent a while living in Europe, including Paris and London. I loved the research aspect of the work but found the teaching quite a lonely profession.”

Fascinated by multimedia

David had always harbored an interest in computers and because of the creative link with art history he was especially fascinated by multimedia.

“I started to explore that interest and decided to take the leap and make a career change,” he told Greening of Oil in a March 8 interview. That leap began with a fast track, six-month course.

“It was an accelerated learning course which was full time and I learned a whole range of skills at a very basic level,” he said.

The college gave students careers assistance and help with work placement.

“In the end I had no need of that because I kind of walked into the position here at Devon which is one of the world’s leading independent oil and gas exploration and production companies. I had already spent two weeks covering for an old colleague here and the work seemed to really click. They offered me a full-time position and I have never looked back!”

Somewhere between a systems and a business analyst

The job David does is somewhere between a systems and a business analyst.“It’s kind of a jack of all trades,” he explained. “As a systems analyst I make sure that all the systems work well together and as a business analyst I make sure that the people who use the software have all of their needs accounted for. My work is project-related so a typical day really depends on how deep into a project we are working. An average day involves a lot of meetings and planning out the work to be done on people who are in the trenches.”

Meetings, he said, “are often held with our team in our head office in Oklahoma City. So right now, for example, I am redesigning our intranet system, working mainly on the business side of that. I will make sure that we have all of the designs and requirements right so that we capture all of the things we need our intranet to do.”

David needs excellent people skills for his job. “Often people who are not involved in technology come in and wave their arms around asking for thingummyjigs to describe the type of functionality they want. It’s my job to try and figure out what they are really looking for and how I can make that work for them on the technical side of things. Wherever possible I come up with a solution and explain how it will work in a way that makes sense to someone who is not immersed in technology.”

So how does David’s work impact Devon?

“My team develops systems which have a real connection with all of the business we do here at Devon Energy—robust accounting systems, for example, or systems that monitor pipelines or gas processors.

“Our work helps to keep the business running because without systems and technology Devon would not be able to do the work they do. For example, we have locations in three different cities and field locations which are quite often in the middle of nowhere with just a cell phone connection. So technology is often a lifeline to those workers out in the field.”

IT systems have an environmental impact, too

David is also concerned with ecological issues to do with technology.

“When systems are too complex or have too many interdependencies it is possible to have too big a technological footprint,” he explained. “It is amazing the amount of environmental impact IT systems have in terms of power usage and one of the things that make my job so fun and exciting every day is to try and reduce our technological complexity so that it’s good for the environment and helps to save the company money. The challenge of my job is try to solve problems using technology whilst at the same time making it as lean and as elegant as it can possibly be.”

Study trips each summer to Paris

Does David have any regrets about his change of career?

“Not for one split second,” he said. “It was absolutely the right decision. I found I was really stagnating in academia and I find what I do now is so exciting and team-driven compared to what seemed quite lonely work actually. Every day we are solving new problems in really innovative ways and it’s a very creative atmosphere in which to work.”

He has still managed to keep his hand in the academic world, teaching one course of art history per semester at University of Lethbridge, where he used to teach full time.

“I also run a study trip every summer to Paris for two weeks. I take 20 students over there and we see all the museums. It’s a lot of fun. By doing that I get to do the things I really enjoyed about teaching,” he said with a laugh.

Life stuffed full of fun

David admits to working a 50-hour week for Devon but says that’s not the norm.

“I really enjoy my work so I end up working extra hours because I get so wrapped up in what I am doing. It’s the sort of work you get really involved in and can’t leave it alone until you are finished a project—particularly if you are fixing a particular problem.”

David and his wife Heather have two small daughters, aged 5 and 2, so he has his hands pretty full when he is not working.

“I still love to read and do that any spare second I get. We also live just an hour away from the Rockies and have some really nice hiking and biking trails near where we live, so I love to go hiking whenever I get the time!"

Links of interest

Devon Energy

Lethbridge University

University of Toronto

Contact Liz Bestic at liz@bestic.co.uk or visit her Web site