Vikkie’s Story

MY NAME IS VIKKIE PHILLIP AND I AM ZACHRY.

IAMZ Vikkie Phillips_1495_crop

I am the new business manager at the INEOS Chocolate Bayou petrochemical plant in Alvin,Texas, after spending most of the past two years at the ExxonMobil refinery in Baton Rouge, La.

This past January, my husband and I transferred from Louisiana to work at new Zachry job sites. I’m excited to be back in Texas. Although I’m originally from Louisiana, we lived in Texas for 12 years previously. Texas is where we raised our children and is now home for us all.

I started working at the Baton Rouge site in July 2013, a month after the Industrial Services Group (ISG) took over the contract. I was an administrative coordinator, doing mostly accounting-related work. I handled most administrative functions, including payroll, accounts payable and interacting with employees directly.

I really enjoyed taking on new challenges, learning new skills and mastering them. I also got to interact with the employees firsthand. I loved meeting them and getting to know new people.

The majority of Zachry jobs I held before the one in Baton Rouge were already established and pretty much well-oiled machines. ExxonMobil was the first Zachry job for me where the employees were rolling over from one contractor to another.

Some employees who worked for the previous contractor were hesitant about the change and had trouble getting onboard with Zachry’s culture. I felt like I became a cheerleader for Zachry. It was a challenge to bring the transitioning employees and new hires into the Zachry culture, all while learning the ExxonMobil way of doing things.

I wanted to do something to help morale, so I began putting messages on the dry erase board in our office for employees to see – things like smiley faces and “Happy Monday.” Then, an artistic co-worker, Elizabeth George, began decorating the messages. Next, we started putting “quotes of the day” on the board and everyone would stop by just to see what we had written that day.

Our site manager, Matthew Glad, really liked them and said we should start e-mailing the quotes to employees. I would find quotes that would fit each day, whether they wereinspirational or about change. One of my favorite quotes was about change: “The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change. The realist adjusts the sail.”

We had to adjust the sail many times at that site, so that one was very appropriate. It was a crazy roller coaster ride at times, but I definitely saw improvement. When we started, there were roughly 100 people. That number went up and down for a bit, but now there are about 230 employees onboard with Zachry.

I started working for Zachry almost nine years ago on a six-week turnaround. After the turnaround, they decided to keep me. I’ve been working for Zachry ever since.

I love the Zachry culture. I love the focus on safety. I love that it’s a family-owned, privately owned business. You feel like you’re working with family and friends when you work for this company. I’ve never felt like I was working for a corporation where I’m just a name or number. And that is why I AM ZACHRY.