Dick Paten was a well-known and highly respected Queensland geologist who contributed greatly to the petroleum exploration industry and its organisations – including PESA, QUPEX and APEA (the precursor of APPEA, and now AEP).

In 1977, along with Lee Pfitzner and Maurie Drew, he was instrumental in holding the first PESA Queensland Symposium, an event that lives on today.  This event was instigated by the parlous state of petroleum exploration in Queensland at the time: In the words of VG Swindon, the Chair of that first Symposium: