I’m a craft superintendent at the Chevron Phillips Chemical maintenance job site in Old Ocean, Texas, where I’ve been for 15 years.

I manage the maintenance and project side, so I supervise up to 70 employees on crane, rigging, ironworking and civil work. We take care of daily maintenance, project needs and turnarounds.

The best part of my job is the reward of seeing other people learn. When I started my first job at age 18, folks took me under their wings and helped me learn, so I like to do the same thing for others.

I’ve always been interested in teaching others. When employees want to learn, I like to help them get their certifications in rigging, cranes, structural, civil and welding. It’s just something I like to do. The way the industry is going, you have to teach anyone who is willing to learn because, sooner or later, they’ll be in your position.

I have meetings every morning with the whole crew as a team. I try to stay aware of all the individual team members by watching their progress and checking to see if they need to learn something. Your team makes you successful as a supervisor. Without them, you have knowledge, but no way to do the work. I feel that as long as we work together as a team, do the best we can and work safely, we’re succeeding at our jobs.

Outside of work, I’m an emergency medical technician (EMT) and I’ve been a fireman with the Bay City Fire Department for 11 years. We do rescue, interior firefighting, and mutual aid for the other plants around Matagorda County. We’re on call 24-7 and I go in whenever I’m are available to help them. We do training in the classroom and also in the field at Texas A&M University.

I became an EMT and fireman because I’m always up for challenges. The work keeps me on my toes. I love learning new skills and I love being able to extend a hand when someone’s in need.

Being in fire and rescue has actually helped me with my job at Zachry. In fire and rescue, you learn how to manage people in a stressful situation. This experience has taught me how to manage multiple people at one time, and to be able to work well with everyone when things get tough, like during a turnaround.

At Zachry, it’s rewarding to reach our goals, not just goals the customers set, but ones that we set. I like showing the client what Zachry can do. And that is why I AM ZACHRY.