30 Years Ago Today

30 years ago today I started working at my first post-college job. I was a Mining Engineer for Exxon Minerals. I was working on a small copper/zinc deposit in New Mexico near Silver City. (Near the ghost town of Pinos Altos)

Our offices were in downtown Houston, in what was then called Dresser Tower, which is now called KBR tower. I started off in a window office (until they found a suitable inside office for me - I did not have enough experience to rate a window office) and we were on something like the 22nd floor. The view was spectacular.

I was staying in the Whitehall Hotel (now a Crowne Plaza) because Minerals said that they were going to be moving out of downtown, and wanted me to wait before I rented an apartment. They didn't move until a year later, but I stayed in that hotel for about six weeks.

The first day I showed up, my manager saw me in the hall and said "Christmas came early this year!" Very nice. His name was Jim Grenias, and was probably about 45, and had worked in what seemed to be dozens of different mines. (A tramp miner, we called folks like that). They had about three new engineers like me, and about a dozen very experienced miners. My boss's boss was named Rich Hughes (He sure loved to drink. Hell, all those miners loved to drink!) and had worked everything from placer gold in Alaska (to whence he returned) to hard rock (ie, non-coal) underground in Idaho.

A few of the other people's names I remember are Dave Mann, Goetz (I can't dredge up his first name, but he always wore a short sleeve shirt and a tie (with a clip) than never went below his sternum.) Wayne was our ventilation guy. Walter Davis (who became a very close friend of mine, and has since passed away) was our metallurgist. Shortly after I arrived Shen Yu and Hal Edwin joined the team. I still have lunch with Shen and Hal on a regular basis.

The project (there was no mine) was canceled within a year. I then moved to Colorado and worked on the Colony Oil Shale Project. It, too was canceled within a year.

That ended my experiment of working for a large company.

I have many fond memories of Exxon (now ExxonMobil) though. I would not have traded those two years in for anything.