Mark Phair, vice president and general manager of the Valero Wilmington Refinery in California, believes curiosity is an important component of being a good leader. Nobody knows everything about the refining business so you have to ask questions to get a better understanding of what’s going on, according to Phair.
“I better understand things by interacting with the employees, seeing what they’re doing and helping in any way I can to assist them in accomplishing their goals,” he said. “I ask questions like, ‘Have we considered this?’ and also help them in following up on their ideas.
“Listening is so important with this job. You need to have knowledge of the business, whether you started somewhere in the refinery as an operator, mechanic or engineer, or maybe you came in as a supervisor or manager. You need to have a personal understanding of what goes on in a refinery, what we’re trying to accomplish, what the expectations are of people in their jobs, etc. Overall, what we’re always trying to do is be safe and reliable. How do you do that? What do people need to be doing to make that happen? You have to have an understanding of that coming in to manage a refinery.”
Phair, who received a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Georgia Tech in 1982 and a Master of Business Administration from Lamar University in 1991, has been employed with Valero for 15 years. Prior to Valero, Phair worked for Mobil Oil Corp. for 16 years. Through the years, Phair has served as a process engineer, project engineer, planning and economics analyst, front line supervisor, shift superintendent, process engineering manager, technical manager and operations manager. Phair has been in his current position for three and a half years. During that time, he’s worked to improve relations between the site and regulatory agencies.
“We work to maintain our safe and reliable operation while being cost competitive in an environment where taxes and utility costs are high, and the regulatory atmosphere is tough,” Phair said. “It’s difficult to get permits to do anything new, and it’s difficult to deal with regulatory agencies. It’s just a hard conversation to have because the various agencies all have their own expectations.
“We’ll always do everything in our power to meet the legal requirements, and I think we have an outstanding record. However, trying to have a synergistic approach to something is almost impossible because they don’t really want to listen. I don’t think we’ve ever really overcome that challenge, but we continue to talk with them and work on our objectives at the site.”
Another challenge involves employee attrition.
“This is a plant that started up 45 years ago so we had some big hiring about 10 years after it opened for business,” Phair said. “A lot of those employees are nearing retirement so we know we’re going to lose skilled labor. I’d say for the most part it’s been a little difficult finding skilled craftsmen — your analyzer, instrument and rotating equipment technicians. We’ve been finding them but it takes a while to finally get them in the gate. It takes maybe three to four months to find somebody whereas in the past it was a little quicker than that.
“On the operator side, we still find plenty of people who are willing and wanting to work in our industry. We did a hiring class last year and added 15 new employees. So we’re still finding a pretty steady stream of skilled and motivated workers. Finding engineers has been a little tough but we have been able to maintain our staffing levels. Currently, we’re not building or growing; we’re trying to maintain our employee base. I’m not trying to find 50 people. I’m trying to find 10 to 15 people per year. My need is probably not great enough yet to really stretch what’s out there or not out there.”
Pride throughout the site
In 2005, the Valero Wilmington Refinery received OSHA VPP Star status, making it the first California refinery to earn the VPP Star designation. The site was reapproved as a Star site in 2011 by the California Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
“We have pride in maintaining that status, and I think that pride goes throughout the organization,” Phair said. “I’ve been in other plants where it felt like the Star status was a management thing and not something for everybody. However, there is a sense of pride here and we want to maintain that.
“At the Wilmington site, we want everyone to participate in improvement; we do not care what employees’ titles are. What I get from the work force here is the employees want to maintain a safe plant. They take pride in the safety of the workforce. They don’t want anybody to get hurt.”
The site also takes pride in giving back.
“We reach out to the local schools that are nearby,” Phair said. “We send people to schools to participate in reading and tutoring programs. We always want to be in touch and give back. Wilmington isn’t Beverly Hills; it doesn’t have a lot of money or civic support. So what can we do to make this area a success? Can we hire Wilmington’s citizens? Can we go to the schools and help them? Can we reach out to the schools and take some high school students in and show them what we do here? Those are the kinds of things we do.
“I’m also on the board of the United Way of Greater Los Angeles, and I participate a lot in volunteer events at the plant.”
Plans for the future
The Valero Wilmington Refinery has a major turnaround planned for the first quarter of 2015, which will involve its hydrotreating units. There is also a cat cracker turnaround planned for the fourth quarter of 2015, which will be two to three times larger in terms of man-hours and cost than the hydrotreating turnaround.
“There is also a potential upgrade that involves adding a cogeneration facility,” Phair said. “However, we need to get our permit from Air Quality Management District, as well approval from our coastal agency. We’ve been waiting to get that permit for about three years now. That’s an example of the difficulty of receiving permits.”
To combat this, Phair and the Wilmington site continue to try to influence legislation through the Western States Petroleum Association.
“We want to make sure we’re not being heavily penalized as an industry,” he said. “A couple of years ago, one of the parts of Assembly Bill 32-California Global Warming Solutions Act involved oil companies being required to pay for hundreds of hydrogen fueling stations across the state. Why should we have to pay for hydrogen fueling stations when we won’t own the fuel and we won’t be marketing the fuel? Finally, we got that changed. That’s just an example of the ridiculousness of the legislation and how it penalizes us as an industry.”
Despite its restrictions, Phair believes the industry has a bright future ahead.
“I’ve been in this industry for 32 years,” he said. “Originally, some people said refineries wouldn’t be around forever, and that it was a dying industry. However, this industry continues to revive itself and grow. I read about this growth in BIC; I think you guys have a lot of good articles. I also get API’s daily newsletter and read various industry journals that get sent my way.
“Ultimately, we provide energy people need and energy that improves people’s lives. I continue to see us doing that by providing the products people want to buy. And I think demand worldwide will continue to grow because people want to have the things we have in the U.S.”
