Article by Gwyn Moses

How do you make the transition from a principal geophysicist with over 30 years experience to running an art gallery with my wife in the Scottish Highlands?  It may look like a seamless transition, but it took years of planning, a chunk of luck and a firm push from a falling oil price.

The first thoughts about changing lifestyle started over 10 years ago when on holiday for a few days in Sark, and we sat down over far too many drinks to brainstorm about what we wanted to do with our lives.  At the time we were keen photographers and had travelled to world and thought the long term plan would to be open a small gallery in a tourist town selling our photos to the public.  Time moved on and we slowly developed our ideas, including writing a business plan as part of an Open University course on entrepreneurship which forced us to think in detail about what we wanted for the business and doing a weekend course in picture framing to enhance our photographs.  As the general economy crashed, my wife went from a fully occupied IT trainer in the city to having almost no work, so we started looking more seriously at locations, looking for houses in the highlands with outbuildings to run businesses from.  Finally we settled on a cottage 10 miles outside Fort William, needing lots of renovation but ideal for wildlife and our cats to roam safely and a long term plan to do it up and move in a few years.

Life has a habit of bowling googlies at you, and almost exactly a month after we completed on the highland cottage, Centrica bought Venture and gave most us the choice of redundancy or an excellent relocation package to Aberdeen.  This brought the plan of moving to the cottage forwards by a few years and we sold to house in London and I became a weekly commuter to Aberdeen with the best commute in the UK.  Meanwhile my wife set up Gillian Sloan Framing and our other business (www.penguincorner.co.uk) was developed into a full web based shop selling everything to do with penguins.  The businesses developed, but we saw the need for a shop so started looking for a property on the High Street in Fort William, but nothing was suitable, being too small, too expensive or impossible for disabled access.

Then the oil price started crashing and the company I worked for (Axis Well Technology) went from turning work away to running out of projects, so they made the difficult decision to lose a few staff last March (2015) and I was one of the obvious choices.  Therefore, after a third of a century of oil industry employment, I was free to get working on our long term plan.  The right premises became available and we moved in to start a major clear up and refurbishment of our shop, Gallery in the Fort on Fort William High Street.

However the plans had changed over the years (an emergent strategy in MBA speak) and with the contacts made through the framing we have several strings to our bow.  We represent over 20 artists whose artwork we sell, from professional artists and talented amateurs to some still at school.  We include word turning, felting and local music and are shortly to start stocking quality chocolate from a local business, as well as art supplies and the penguin business has exploded onto the High Street.  The picture framing has more than trebled and keeps us going through the winter months.

There is no denying that life is very different.  We have gone from a very good oil industry salary to a low income.  We can no longer afford to splash out on foreign holidays or think of buying a new car when we want to.  On the upside, stress levels are much lower, quality of life is higher and we spend a lot more time together.  I have gone from an environment where everyone was highly educated, engaged and motivated to one where I am dealing with the general public of all abilities.  I think I am now much better at dealing with people and my levels of understanding and compassion have gone up.  I’m able to spend time getting involved with community projects such as reopening the local cinema and appreciate the amazing scenery of the Fort William area.  I cannot deny there are downsides – the wet Monday in January when the High Street is deserted, the days when it doesn’t stop raining or you don’t want to crawl out of bed on a dark morning, but overall the quality of life is much improved, I just wish it came with an oil industry salary.

Do I miss the oil industry?  There’s nothing like getting your hands on a new seismic dataset, or having a well get near the target.  There’s also nothing as bad as rewriting the 10^th draft of a management report because someone upstairs didn’t like the truth or updating the monthly targets on a failing project.  I miss the people, the banter, the networking and the technical work.  I don’t miss the report writing, office politics, impossible targets and bad managers.  So, if anyone has a requirement for a geophysicist or JV manager over the winter months, give me a call, but otherwise I’m happy to sit it out for now.

What is my advice to others?  Do what you enjoy in life and develop interests outside the oil industry.  Think about what else you would like to do if you were suddenly out of a job.  Sketch out your ideas and develop a rudimentary business plan.  Save what you can, when you can.  Join every share scheme going as you don’t miss it before it hits the pay packet.  Over the years, try to build up a reserve to keep you going through the dark days.  Above all, stay optimistic and things will work out in the long term.  You can always contact me on gwynmoses@gmail.com for more sage advice and commiserations or just a general whinge about the state of the oil industry.