The EPI Team

Ben began his seismic career at Western Geophysical in 1997 as an Observer. He has worked extensively in the main offshore oil and gas operating regions on projects in Africa, Europe, the Middle East, North & South America and South East Asia. He worked his way up offshore with WesternGeco, CGG and SeaBird to the role of Party Chief. The latter part of his offshore career was spent working in Australia, NZ and the wider SE Asia region. He started his onshore career as a rigging team supervisor and later took up the roles of Operations Manager followed by Sales and Marketing Manager at SeaBird Exploration. Ben has extensive first-hand, technical, safety, environmental and commercial knowledge which is delivering value to EPI clients.

Since gaining his Master of Engineering (MEng) from Imperial College London in 2005, Spencer has been involved in a number of projects as a Geotechnical Engineer focusing mainly on the Oil & Gas (O&G) and Offshore Wind Farm (OWF) industries within Europe.  In 2010, he moved to Malaysia, which enabled him to expand his  experience in the site survey and investigation market. Spencer has since been involved in over 100 projects both in both the hydrocarbon and offshore wind industries. At EPI, Spencer is currently the GM for Asia Pacific, looking after the company’s O&G and OWF businesses.

Warren joined EPI in 2012 to continue helping expand the international sales presence. In 2013, he moved to the US where he was instrumental in opening the office in Houston. This important step in EPI’s growth ensured we tied closer links to the company’s US based clients, which have grown tenfold. Warren brings a wealth of business experience and knowledge in a variety of fields and has a proven track record establishing close links with clients and consultants alike. Warren now looks after International Business Development in a host of territories.

Heidi Etter is a marine environmental scientist with over fifteen years of international experience working in various consulting roles for marine projects, including research, outreach, oil and gas, civil engineering, and offshore wind. She has experience managing diverse projects including mitigation and monitoring, Incidental Harassment Authorizations (IHA), Environmental and Social Impact Assessments (ESIA), Environmental Management Plans (EMP), Sound Source Verification (SSV), and decommissioning comparative assessments. She has extensive experience developing, managing, and implementing mitigation and monitoring requirements for a variety of marine industry projects around the world. She has worked and managed projects in over 30 countries, often in remote areas of the world, resulting in a high level of skill deciphering international regulations.

Dr. Courbis has been working in marine science and regulation for over 25 years. She is a Principal Scientist at EPI Group. She focuses on marine protected species and specializes in impact assessment, permitting and compliance, and mitigation. Her work in offshore energy includes Construction and Operations Plans, NEPA documentation and consultations, siting and planning, agency and stakeholder engagement, development of practicable mitigation, MMPA authorizations, CZMA consistency, and public comment support for organizations. In addition to work in offshore wind, she has supported environmental assessment and compliance for LNG, seismic, fisheries, coastal development, marine hydrokinetics (tidal and wave energy), and O&G projects. She has worked as a NEPA coordinator for NOAA, in co-management of a National Marine Sanctuary.

James has a long history in the energy sector, starting out as a hydrographic surveyor, and working up to Party Chief and then Client Representative where he worked across the EU, USA and South America for renewable energy and hydrocarbon clients. Responsible for monitoring HSE compliance, data quality and stakeholder engagement, James’ experience led him to his most recent role as Geophysical and Geotechnical Project Manager for Orsted. He now brings his wealth of expertise to EPI, providing reassurance and support for our clients and consultants on projects for offshore wind.

Gehrig joins EPI with more than 30 years’ experience in the oil and gas industry as a Senior Executive in geoscience companies, he holds a PhD in Geophysics. Gehrig has an exemplary record as a business leader within the oil and gas exploration and production services industry and brings with him deep technical knowledge, together with great experience in development and commercialisation of new technologies. Gehrig is a proven executive manager and geophysicist with over 30 years in the industry. Over the past 20 years Gehrig has been responsible for growing several international seismic contracting businesses to turnovers in excess of $100MM per annum, most recently as CEO of Prospectiuni where he was responsible for increasing turn over from $30MM to $100MM.

Matthew is a geologist who specialises in sedimentology, sequence stratigraphy, prospect evaluation, play fairway analysis, seismic, well-log, field and core analysis. With a wide global experience across four continents and including conventional and unconventional exploration and development projects, Matthew has built a track record of innovative technical analyses and helping clients to achieve their exploration goals. Matthew also holds post of Senior Lecturer in Petroleum Geology at Plymouth University, UK and chair of PDF Fellowship at Plymouth University. This experience ensures Matthew brings a strong ethos of collaborative learning to the EPI Group to continuously improve our capabilities.

Peter van Baaren is a highly experienced seismic survey design geophysicist. After graduating from Delft University with a Master’s in applied geophysics in 1987 and his National Service, he worked as a field geophysicist on 2D and 3D crews working in various countries in Europe before moving to the Americas.

After moving out of the field, he has been involved in mainly designing complex land and transition zone seismic acquisition surveys in terrains encompassing mountains, arable land, urban areas, deserts, and transition zone for different sources from airguns, explosives to vibroseis and nodal/cable acquisition systems.

Working for a large integrated oilfield services company, with many talented colleagues, and being posted around the globe Peter has been at the forefront of applying technology to design surveys to overcome seismic imaging problems. This has included ultra-high channel count high productivity broadband vibroseis surveys to bespoke seismic surveys for mining. The key to these successful designs is his understanding of all the steps from acquisition to processing, combined with a very broad knowledge of seismic operations onshore, in the transition zone, OBN and marine. Currently at EPI Peter’s focus is on land, OBN, and marine seismic acquisition survey design leveraging the broader knowledge within the EPI group.

Peter has published a number of papers and is an active reviewer for the SEG and EAGE

Boff has over 33 years’ experience in the seismic and oilfield industry. The majority of this has been gained with Schlumberger group companies overseas, and specifically the Middle East. Boff started his career in land seismic and held positions of increasing responsibility a variety of operational, technical and management positions such as land party chief, land marketing manager, Regional sales managers, technical product champion and country manager. He spent two years as the Eastern Hemisphere Sales Manager for Schlumberger’s subsurface consulting group before working in the UK as the Europe and Africa Sales Manager for Schlumberger Geosolutions before joining the EPI Group in 2017.

Jenni started has worked in the industry since 1998, beginning as a graduate seismic processor for Svitzer – who became part of Fugro. She has worked globally, both on and offshore in areas such as South America, Gulf of Mexico, North Sea, Baltic Sea, West Africa and Indonesia. Jenni worked her way up to client representative, setting up her own consultancy to provide data processing, data QC and QA. She brings this wealth of technical and commercial knowledge to her role at EPI, working with clients across enabling smooth running of wind farm projects.

Will joined EPI in 2018 within the Operations Team, before being promoted to Operations Supervisor and QHSE Manager in 2021. Since 2025, Will is the Marine Operations Manager, overseeing projects from proposal to delivery within the Marine division.

Sarah joined EPI in 2025 with a decade of experience leading successful Marketing departments within the global Technology markets.