Generations of BR history

• By ASHLEY M. BAILEY
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Jun 8, 2009

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James Dunn’s 43-year-old employee training manual looked fairly new Sunday as did his metal hat and a June 1, 1966, company news bulletin congratulating one of his friends for hitting a home run in a baseball game.

Besides being an admitted pack rat, Dunn explained that the items have some sentimental value. “I just thought I’d share so other people could remember some of the people they had worked with,” he said.

Dunn was among the many current and former employees of ExxonMobil at the Louisiana State Museum on Sunday who donated and viewed company memorabilia. He started working with the company in April 1966, when it was known as Humble Oil and Refinery.

ExxonMobil is celebrating 100 years of operation in Baton Rouge with a year’s worth of private functions and public events. Items loaned at Sunday’s “road show” will be used for display at other events.

Bonnie Price said she thinks many people hold on to their memorabilia because the company was “such a big part of people’s lives.”

Price has been an employee of ExxonMobil since 1950. She started at the age of 18 as a mail girl and has worked as a secretary, a professional recruiter and head of the General Services division.

“I did everything,” Price said.

Price retired in 1989, but rejoined the company as a contract worker after being asked to lead tours of the facility — which she still does today at 77.

Her daughter, father and great-uncle have worked at ExxonMobil. “You had generations of family working there,” Price said.

The company’s Baton Rouge facility has undergone several name changes. It opened in Baton Rouge in 1909 as Standard Oil of Louisiana and then became Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey. Since then, the company also has been known as Esso Standard Oil Co., Humble Oil and Refinery, Enjay Chemical  and Exxon.

Currently, ExxonMobil has more than 3,000 regular employees and 4,000 contract employees at multiple facilities in the Baton Rouge area, said spokeswoman Lana Sonnier.

Every ExxonMobil job creates about six indirect jobs for Baton Rouge, Sonnier said.

ExxonMobil has remained stable in a volatile economy, Steve Blume said, and plans to hire about 100 local employees this year.