Gender diversity in the oil and gas industry remains a hot topic, and Halliburton has added significantly to the efforts that were recognized among the Top Ten in Profiles in Diversity Journal’s 2013 Innovation Awards.

In the past year, Halliburton forged partnerships with universities and community organizations to create an increased awareness of the STEM fields and opportunities in the oil and gas industry, especially among school-aged girls and underrepresented minorities. Outreach efforts for the 2013–2014 academic year touched the lives of over 2,000 students.

“We have outreach efforts with a number of community organizations and universities that allow us to reach young men and women at different levels of their educational journey,” says Lisa Finch, manager for global diversity at Halliburton.

The company has also launched a professional development series for college-level Society of Women Engineer chapters. Through this development series, Halliburton was able to increase its presence at gender-based events by 86 percent from fall 2013 to spring 2014, reaching over 500 women engineers. The program shares the Halliburton message, while focusing on the soft skills generally not covered in a university curriculum. The success of the program has earned Halliburton a finalist position in the NACE (National Association of Colleges and Employers) Innovation Excellence Award for Diversity for the second year running.

Halliburton also launched its first women’s resource group in 2013—Women Sharing Excellence— which provides three core programs to help women in the company assemble a valuable career tool kit: 1) leadership and professional development, delivered in person or virtually to accommodate geographic differences; 2) mentoring (both one-one-one and mentoring circles); and 3) community activities. The global group now has over 600 members, and continues to grow.