EL SEGUNDO HERALD December 3, 2020 Page 7
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JOHN SKULICK
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Walker from front page
also held posts as the operations section head
and oils planning manager at the first-in-thenation
for Standard Oil Richmond refinery.
He then sojourned to El Segundo to take on
the job as refinery business manager.
Walker continued to strengthen his knowledge
base about the intricacies of the daily
operations of the Chevron Corporation, later
working as a manufacturing and supply chain
manager in Belle Chase, Louisiana, responsible
for the company’s management and manufacturing
of assets in Oak Point, Louisiana,
as well as Maua, Brazil.
Next on Walker’s rising timeline, in 2019,
he became vice-president of strategy, planning
and technology for the corporation, with
responsibilities including leading “downstream
and chemicals strategy formation,” and delving
into and devising planning options for
refining and marketing, lubricants, and the
companies petrochemical business, as well
as process and information technology.
Walker’s background of successfully filling
multiple roles made him an obvious candidate
to fill the general manager slot in El Segundo
once Kusch decided to retire.
Lily Craig, Chevron’s external affairs manager,
feels that the company made a great
selection when tabbing Walker. “Well you
know, I hated to see Henry Kusch retire,” she
emailed. “He was such an awesome general
manager and a great guy, too! But I cannot
imagine a better new general manager than
Fredrick Walker. He is wicked smart, thoughtful,
empathetic, and just plain cares about
people. And if that were not enough, he’s got a
great sense of humor and an engaging smile.”
Jeff Wilson, the El Segundo refinery manager
of corporate affairs, emailed “I have
known Fredrick since he first worked in El
Segundo and despite his many significant
strategic leadership roles within Chevron
since that time, he remains one of the most
humble, thoughtful, accessible and engaging
individuals I have worked with. In these
challenging and uncertain times, we are
truly blessed to have Fredrick at the helm.”
Continued Wilson: “Upon his return as General
Manager, Fredrick made it an absolute
priority to introduce himself to our refinery
family conducting weekly “Ask Fredrick”
web calls that averaged 500-600 employees.
I know he also took great delight in spending
time recently with our Community Advisory
Panel (CAP) where nearly our entire virtual
CAP meeting was centered around getting to
know Fredrick, his family, his work history
and vision for the future.”
Walker said that working his way up the
ranks has well prepared him for his new
job. He said that over the years working for
Chevron, “you get a chance to talk about the
jobs that interest you, not only the next job,
but where you are targeting…so I had been
looking to do a job like this for several years,
had it on my radar…and other people had me
on their radar to become a general manager.
Through dialogue and feedback from others,”
he said, “I was offered the opportunity…a
great opportunity for me, a big challenge, but
one that I am looking forward to.”
Walker said that, because he was a long-time
employee of Chevron, the interview process
was different from the one that another external
job seeker would partake in. He said that
the interview process was more tilted towards
“the evaluations that you go through year-toyear,”
calling it “a multi-year interview” that
embodied the totality of the work Walker
had done for the company. He said that top
executives, as they look to develop future
general managers, “are constantly looking
in the pipeline” for promotable candidates.
Said Walker: “I am “very excited and
humbled by the opportunity.”
No story in the fall of 2020 would be
complete without a thought on the scourge of
COVID-19 and its effects on the workplace
and employee safety. If Walker had taken
his new job a year ago, his responsibilities
would have been much different. “The way
we have had to adjust to keep a 24-7-hour
facility operating safely, reliably, and in an
environmentally sound way,” Walker said, is
paramount. “While you are also having to
protect the health of those essential workers”
who must show-up on the job site, unable to
telecommute because of their job requirements.
If COVID-19 wasn’t raging, Walker
said normally he would be canvassing the
campus, shaking hands, rallying the troops,
greeting people he hadn’t seen since his prior
stint in El Segundo, or introducing himself
to employees that he hadn’t met.
But in today’s pandemic atmosphere, Walker
is leveraging the WebEx video platform to
communicate with his charges, with sometimes
400-500 employees per session in the refinery
and working from home, “engaging and talking.
“You have to keep people engaged and
informed,” he said, especially during times of
uncertainty or unusual circumstances. It is a
great way for employees, both working from
home and at the facility, to ask questions of
leadership, he said, mitigating somewhat the
uncertainty of what the future may hold and
the certainty of “constant change.”
When Walker is not tending to his responsibilities
at Chevron, he and his wife Selena
like to get out-and-about, with both being
avid runners who have participated in several
half marathons. Walker is a big fan of the
New Orleans Saints and is looking forward
to, when allowed, attending a Ram or Charger
game at Inglewood’s SoFi Stadium. When
asked about other outside interests, Walker
paused, chuckled, and said he had recently
asked his wife,who are very recent empty
nesters, “what are our hobbies?”
I guess running the local Chevron refinery,
a key cog in the Chevron empire, does not
leave a lot of “hobby time,” right? •
BRE # 00946399
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