John and Jo-Ann Lee's Recollections on 'Work'
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Paper Route 1958 John's first job in 8th grade was delivering the local newspaper, The Saratogian to about 50 people just East of his home in Saratoga Springs, NY. Most famous of all (and a notoriously bad tipper) was the National Thoroughbred Hall of Fame. The net was about $800 on the year which was pretty good for that time. And no Social Security taxes! |
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Second job (and where John got his Social Security Number) was working with migrant laborers on a farm where Grandfather Rees had a home on Lake Ontario North of Syracuse NY. According to the Social Security Administration, John netted about $700 over about 6 weeks. But the real payday was learning to drive on the many private dirt roads of the Sodus Fruit Farm. |
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Camp Counselor 1961 A year off in 1960. The next summer, John was employed at Camp Batchelor in the foothills just South of Albany where they were desperate for some help riding herd over the Inner-City youth from Trinity Center. The pay was terrible, but it wasn't very hard work and you got 3 squares and a cot. John's girlfriend also had a job at the girl's camp and more than one late night rendezvous was involved. |
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After a summer working in the yard of a construction company owned by a member of the Vestry of Trinity Church, John got his 'Book" with the Hod Carrier's and Laborer's Union. This a current shot of the boiler plant of the then new SUNY Albany campus where John worked for most of 2 summers. |
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Construction in Ann Arbor 1967 In the Summer of 1967 John decided to stay in Ann Arbor because we were getting married that year. John was able to transfer his 'Union Book' and got a job on the new high-rise which is still the tallest building in town. It was an easy walk from his apartment. This a concrete slip form which went up one story each week. John had no fear of heights at the time, but now he has an occasional nightmare. A fun part was helping to leading a tour of fellow Civil Engineers soon after the building was done. Slip form was a very innovative construction technique. Turns out Mike Truax, a fellow Civil Engineering student and friend, was the Construction Superintendent involved in the total rehab of the building in 1987. |
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After they we married, Jo-Ann left school and worked as a travel agent's assistant at this location just off of the main campus at the University of Michigan. John also worked as a homework grader at the Engineering School. We often said that this was a year in which our standard of living would be compared for many years. The biggest stress was avoiding the draft!
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This was a pay cut from construction. For 1.5 years John toiled as a project engineer at the soon to be closed Bayonne Refinery. It was a miserable commute and winters were just terrible. But the job kept him out of the draft and Viet Nam. In hindsight, it was a small price to pay. He remembers being in charge of a dredging project and had lots of interaction with the Army Corps of Engineers in Manhattan getting permits. He also gained some petroleum pipeline experience which would help him years later in California. |
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Exxon Benicia CA - 1970-1999 The brand new refinery in California was in trouble and they needed more engineers than originally planned for. An edict went out for each existing Exxon plant to send several engineers to California. Bayonne did not want to do that so they offered it to the one least likely to take the offer. John was the only project engineer who was married, had just purchased a home and who had just 2 weeks prior become a father. Despite all those retainers, it took only 2 minutes to decide! The rest is history (see below). |
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Although John had many good sized projects during this period, this stands out as one of his biggest accomplishments. Facing a refinery closure because failure to meet 15 parts per million free oil in the wastewater stream, he designed and built this 'dissolved air flotation' unit . In just 6 months (the regulators gave us 12) he saved the refinery from closure. Still there and working to this day. |
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Exxon Maintenance 1975-1978 John got his first promotion to work in the Maintenance Department. First, running activities for about 1/4 of the plant like cleaning this heat exchanger and then as supervisor of the Planning Department. This was actually a pretty easy job and not too much overtime was required. |
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John moved to the offices up the hill and for 5 years had an even easier job heading up the equipment reliability group. That included 7 metals inspectors, 3 rotating equipment engineers and a combustion engineer. He also headed up the Exxon Refining Inspection Technical Committee for the 5 domestic refineries. Lots of travel including Saudi Arabia as an expert in the inspection field. And because there still was still some spare time, he coordinated the Engineering recruitment activities during the time of 'Max assimilation'. |
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Battered Women's Shelter 1984 - 1989 As the children gained independence, Jo-Ann started volunteering with a local Crisis Line and was one of the few who remained professional when answering the Battered Woman's crisis line. So she switch to that non-profit, was hired and served as director of volunteers and managed their own crisis line. She also was in charge of a motel conversion into transitional housing for those leaving abusive relationships. Pictured here is the main office at that time. |
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John lost his cushy job and spent the next 6 years in the Operations Division. First as supervisor of the Utilities department making clean water for the boilers. That was not much of a challenge and his boss knew it. He was then transferred to the Coker which was always having some problem. Lots of overtime, heartburn and lost sleep. Then off to head up the Personnel Safety activities for 2 years. Preventing Slips, Trips and Falls. This was a tough job as it called for operating just on the edge of integrity in classifying any injuries. |
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Inspection 1990-1992 Deja Vue all over again! Not sure of the boss's thinking, but John was sent back to his old job supervising equipment reliability. Maybe he failed to classify an injury the way the boss wanted it done? A lot less stress, but pretty boring work. John asked to keep one aspect of his old Safety job - that of spearheading the emerging efforts on Process Safety. In that role he headed up the Safe Operations Committee and moved it to a position of the utmost respect by the workforce. |
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Jo-Ann used her talents learned in the motel conversion to work in the construction business. First as an estimator and project administrator. Then running crews for a restoration contractor. There was some off and on time during this period as well. |
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Process Safety 1992-1999 John finally left Inspection again. OSHA and EPA regulations expanded and required processing plants across the USA to focus on management systems to keep the oil in the pipes. OSHA had come to our plant for their first Bay Area inspections because "we never had any problems and must be doing something right". Here he is with Steve Hart who went on to become a Senior VP with ExxonMobil. John didn't. John also spearheaded some efforts through the American Petroleum Institute for all of the refining industry and was even invited to the EPA HQ in Washington to present facts to regulators on some technical issues concerning refrigerated hydrocarbons. |
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After 31 years in the refining business (see why here), John decided to retire as soon as he could at age 55. He had marketable job skills and could work part time. Staying longer meant working for a really bad "pointy haired" boss. He had a good Party at 30 Years - why press it? He often said he had made just a few good decisions in his career. One of those was to maximize all the profit sharing and 401-k options and then leave it untouched to grow in a S&P 500 fund. Now he could do what he wanted and enjoy it. |
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High Priced Consultant 2000-2006 John cashed in on his reputation prior to retiring from Exxon and worked about 1/4 time for about 6 more years. Most were assignments outside of Exxon and he came to realize how fortunate he had been to work with some of the best engineers and operators around the country. Here he is back in Texas leading a Safety Study with his good friend Jack Bonczynski who was soon to retire as well. |
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Jo-Ann was still involved in construction - but fixing the broken things when customers purchased their new home. She started the new job a bit late because we were isolated in Maui right after the 911 attacks. They excused that absence. |
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Habitat 2003-2012 John started volunteering with Habitat for Humanity when Jo-Ann enlisted our Church to help out with enlisting volunteers and preparing lunch on Saturday. He was not working full time, had an extra day in the week, and this volunteering was enjoyable. During this time he perfected his framing, plumbing, and electrical skills. Many pages of our WEB are devoted to this if you go to the special pages section. Alas, his CIDP ailment curtailed his work efforts. |
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TAXES - 2007-2012 John still had some time on his hands and started volunteering with the IRS's Volunteer Income Tax Assistance. He did all the training for the County and ran the biggest tax site for 3 years. He took one year off and then volunteered again for 3 more years with AARP Tax Care for the Elderly. The taxes finally got to be too complicated and he had run out patience with the IRS staff. |
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John had helped his favorite sister-in-law select her Medicare option and realized how intimidating that could be for anyone who did not have a sweetheart retiree plan like he did. He saw an article somewhere and signed up with Contra Costa HICAP. He has become quire an expert at the Medicare / Medi-Cal interface. Can you spot him in the training session? |
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Volunteering 2008-Now Jo-Ann was looking to keep busy so she started with the Contra Costa Regional Medical Center as a front desk volunteer for 4 hours a week. That eventually turned in to running the entire volunteer program for over year when the program director left. Now it is 2 full days a week (ex Pandemic) coordinating new volunteers assimilation and orientation. She has over 10,000 cumulative hours. |
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THE END?? The Lees Be sure to write. jlee@johnrlee.com |
