Todd Staples, President of the Texas Oil and Gas Association (TXOGA), will deliver the keynote address at the inaugural Gulf Response Alliance event, opening the General Session on Tuesday, September 29, 2026, at the Palmer Events Center in Austin, Texas.
His address launches three days of training, demonstrations, and workshops focused on Gulf Coast preparedness and environmental stewardship.
Since 2014, Staples has led TXOGA (founded in 1919), representing the companies powering the Texas and Gulf Coast energy economies. He previously served as Texas Commissioner of Agriculture and spent 12 years in the Texas Legislature shaping natural resource and economic development policy.
“Todd Staples has spent his career bringing together stakeholders to address complex challenges that impact the Texas oil and gas industry, both inland and along the Gulf coast,”
“His leadership and experience make him an ideal keynote speaker as we launch the Gulf Response Alliance and bring together the organizations responsible for protecting our coastal resources, waterways, wildlife, and communities.”
Interactive introduction to Incident Command System (ICS) operations, spill response coordination, wildlife rehabilitation, and tabletop response planning tools.
Learn streamlined ICS planning strategies and practical approaches for managing the critical first stages of an incident response.
Explore practical tools and strategies to support responder mental health, resilience, burnout prevention, and peer support during high-stress incidents.
Gain insights into effective crisis communications, stakeholder engagement, and maintaining public trust during emergency response operations.
Learn the fundamentals of offshore subsea source control, including response timelines, specialized equipment, and global best practices.
Engage with experts at this hands-on workshop covering air monitoring plans, field equipment, sampling strategies, and data interpretation during emergency incidents.
Examine dispersant operations, regulations, environmental trade-offs, and the science behind dispersant effectiveness during oil spill response.
Explore spill trajectory modeling, field data integration, response forecasting, and hands-on training with industry leading modeling tools.
Observe live and recorded demonstrations of offshore spill response equipment and operations from MSRC and CGA exhibit booths.
With the growing accessibility and popularity of drones, oil spill emergency response operations increasingly rely on Uncrewed Aerial Systems (UAS) data as a critical tool. Low-altitude aerial perspectives of spill incidents provide unique insights during response, offering views, details, and maps that are difficult to capture by other means.
View on-water deployment demonstrations showcasing industry and government-recognized spill response equipment and best practices.
Find the times for badge pickup, keynotes, sessions, expo experiences, and more.
September 28-30, 2026 – Palmer Events Center – Austin, TX
Cancellation requests received 60 days or more prior to the event start date.
Cancellation requests received 30–59 days prior to the event.
Cancellation requests received less than 30 days prior to the event. Registrations may be transferred to another individual at no cost up to 7 days before the event. Only valid for the 2026 Gulf Response Alliance event.
If the event is postponed or canceled due to circumstances beyond control (weather, government action, etc.), registration fees may be transferred to a future event or refunded at the discretion of GRA.
