Encore News for Chevron Retirees, published by the Chevron Retirees Association. Website: www.chevronretirees.org Second Quarter 2007 Annual business meeting returns to San Contents Francisco 1 Annual business meeting returns to After four consecutive years of traveling to San Francisco "new" sites from coast-to-coast and 1 Encore Benefits Canada, the Chevron Corner by Ken Smith Retirees Association will return once again to the 2 President’s Letter friendly confines of the 3 Robertson returns as San Francisco Bay Area for its annual business keynote speaker meeting. Dates are May 3 3 retirees take a 19-21 and the venue is the 685-room, 11-story historic journey Marriott San Francisco In what has become tradition, Kevin Ryan (left), Host Area Vice President Airport Hotel at 1800 for the 2006 Pittsburgh annual meeting, passes on a model oil derrick to 4 Leadership workshop Sy Yuan who is serving in that role for the 2007 confab in the San Old Bayshore Highway Francisco Bay Area. Similar oil derricks served as table decorations at at annual meeting in Burlingame. Pittsburgh's closing dinner banquet. 4 Helping students, Marriott runs a free 24-hour shuttle service to and from the airport. It operates every teaching seniors 10 minutes from 4:40 a.m. to 9 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. The frequency changes to every 15 minutes from 9:15 a.m. to 6:15 p.m. and 9:45 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. 5 Mailcall Daily parking fees for those driving to the property are $17 self, $20 valet. 6 Texaco display opens Continued on page 8 in Oklahoma museum; Louisville is next Encore Benefits Corner 6 Court honors Samuel by Ken Smith, CRA's Benefits Chairperson Adelo Insurance premiums soar 65.8 percent, 400 percent more than inflation 7 CRA Briefs In this issue of Benefits Corner I address the growing concern -- shared with me by 9 Encore In Memoriam many of our retirees - which is associated with increasing health care costs and premiums. At the same time, I also will discuss some of the ways Chevron continues to work with health care providers to minimize the impact of rising health care costs. Dr. James Borders, in a recent article in Kentucky's Lexington Herald Leader, points to the fact that, nationwide, insurance premiums have increased 65.8 percent from 2001 to 2006. That is 400 percent more than inflation in the identical time span while Published by Chevron Retirees physician reimbursements have fallen 36 percent just since 2004. Association. During that same period, the profitability of the three largest insurers - United Copyright © 2007 Chevron Retirees Association. HealthCare, Wellpoint and Aetna, which control 78 percent of all health care insurance -- has increased dramatically. Continued on page 7 The president's leadership in offering services and information to the members is the key to making CRA successful. President’s Letter Chapter presidents deserve high praise I want to pay a special tribute to the Chevron Retirees Association Chapter Presidents. They make the Chevron Retirees Association work. Sure, each president has a lot of help from the chapter officers. However, the president's leadership in offering services and information to the members is the key to making CRA successful. The Association's major role is to provide assistance to the chapter presidents. We attempt to do so with the following activities: • Funneling concerns and problems of individual members through the Chapter President to the Benefits Chair and on to the Chevron Corporation for resolution and correction. • Distributing DVDs of the Benefits Chair's Presentation at the Annual Meeting to Chapter Presidents to be shared with Chapter Members. Also the Association publishes quarterly the Benefits Corner in Encore. • Chapter newsletter preparation at an Annual Meeting Workshop (2006) led by the Communications Chair and providing newsletter materials on line. • Conducting an Electronic Communications Usage Workshop to be led by Communications Chair for the Annual Meeting (2007). • Chapter Membership drives are based on the names and addresses prepared by the Demographics Committee. In addition, the Association funds follow up campaigns. The Annual Meeting Membership Workshop conducted by the Planning & Research Committee Chair (2006). • Special leadership problems will be addressed at the Annual Meeting Workshop prepared by the Planning & Research Committee Chair (2007). In several instances, helpful intervention by Area Vice Presidents has saved chapters. • Area and Annual Meetings give Chapter Presidents an opportunity to interact through sharing problems and solutions to those problems. These are only examples of how the Association helps the Chapter Presidents bring services to the members. When problems occur, chapter presidents and officers are encouraged to ask for assistance from the Association through their Area Vice Presidents. However, the creativity and effort of the Chapter Presidents solves most of the problems before the Association ever learns of them. Surely, the Chapter Presidents are the most important people in the Chevron Retirees Association in meeting the needs of our highly valued customers, our membership. -- William H. Leney 2115 Red Oak Place, Danville, CA 94506. (925) 820-6876; [email protected] 2 Robertson returns as keynote speaker Peter Robertson, who gave an outstanding overview of Chevron's record earnings, many offshore discoveries, significant ongoing projects and safety accomplishments at the CRA's Annual Business Meeting in Pittsburgh, Pa. last May, has agreed to serve as the keynote speaker again. Thus, on Monday night, May 21, at the Marriott San Francisco Airport Hotel in Burlingame, Chevron Corp's vice- chairman of the board of directors will step to the rostrum as the principal guest speaker at the Association's traditional dinner banquet. "We are delighted Peter will be our speaker for the second consecutive year. He's eminently skilled at providing our members with an in-depth summary of Chevron's activities because, in his 34-year career with the Company, he has held many key domestic and international positions of increasing responsibility," said CRA President Bill Leney. Headquartered in San Ramon, Calif., Robertson's direct responsibility since Jan. 1, 2005 has included Strategic Planning; Policy, Government and Public Affairs; and Human Resources. He also works closely together with Chairman Dave O'Reilly in overseeing the strategies and operations of the company. Among Robertson's other positions since joining Chevron in 1973: • Comptroller for Chevron Oil Europe in London; • Vice president of Finance for Chevron U.S.A.; • President of Warren Petroleum Co.; • President of Chevron U.S.A.; • A vice president of Chevron Corp., responsible for Chevron's North America Exploration and Production operations; and • President of Chevron Overseas Petroleum Inc., responsible for directing Chevron's worldwide Oil Exploration, Production and Global Gas activities. Robertson is a native of Edinburgh, Scotland. His degrees include a bachelor's Chevron Vice Chairman Peter Robertson in mechanical engineering at Edinburgh University and a master's in business administration from Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, which he attended as a Thouron Scholar. 3 retirees take a historic journey Three members of North Carolina's Blue Ridge Chapter were among World War II veterans who participated in Henderson County's HonorAir project last fall. That program -- which received extensive TV coverage on the CBS Network - was the first to transport a large group of WWII veterans on an organized visit of the new National World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. Harry Williams, Joseph Piatt and chapter treasurer John Hammond joined some 100 other veterans on a Sunday morning in boarding a chartered US Air jet at the Asheville-Henderson Airport. They were accompanied on this all-expenses paid one-day trip by volunteer "guardians." Continued on page 8 John Hammond at Washington, D.C. Memorial 3 Leadership workshop at annual meeting Chapter presidents planning to attend the CRA's May annual business meeting in San Francisco will receive a "bonus." That is a "Leadership Workshop" to be conducted by Charles Rhoads. Rhoads, currently the chair of the CRA's Planning & Research Committee, says, "I am preparing a very focused 'Workshop on Leadership Problems' at the chapter level, which will encompass guidelines on motivation, confidence and organization. Of course, selecting leaders is only part of the equation. Convincing them to volunteer to serve in leadership roles is one of the barriers to the CRA's future success. The workshop will present methods which will assist in that effort." He adds, "Leadership matters because the persons in charge of an organization can make or ruin it. Good leadership is a function of personality as is bad leadership. An organization with good selection procedures, good managers, and effective teamwork and strategies make the fewest mistakes and give themselves the best chances for Charles Rhoads success." Rhoads' course content will include: How to define and evaluate leadership. Defining leadership competencies. The components of organizational effectiveness. Building success through teamwork. Critical thinking and out-of-the-box problem solving. Communications skills. Influence skills. Based in Houston, Rhoads practices what he preaches. Following his retirement from Chevron in 1984 as general manager, corporate Human Resources, Pittsburgh, he became managing director of Boyden. That is a global leader in the executive search industry with more than 65 offices in 40 countries. Boyden also specializes in Interim Management and Human Capital consulting across a broad spectrum of industries. Rhoads has served the CRA as area vice president, South Texas; chairman of the Benefits Committee; and first president of the Metropolitan Houston Chapter. Helping students, teaching seniors Californians Bruce Rosenblatt of Lafayette and Ronald Tarica of Atascadero, having retired in the 1990s from high-tech jobs at San Ramon, have turned their focus to teaching.