Local eighth graders, freshman attend Marathon career fair

CATLETTSBURG, Ky. –– Over the next three weeks, approximately 3,500 area eighth graders and high school freshman will attend the Marathon Petroleum refinery career fair, which kicked off Monday at the training facility as students from Chesapeake learned about each of the refinery’s 16 departments.

“Each department of the refinery participates to show the different jobs, what each does and talk about the educational requirements,” Cathy Cremeans, refinery chemist and member of the refinery’s inclusion team, which puts the event on, said. “Each department has their own station.”

The departments represented included security, which provides security for the complex controlling access through electronic means; terminal, transportation and rail (TT&R), which is responsible for distributing products from the refinery to customers; product control, which decides which crude oil to purchase and what products to make in order to maximize profit; operations, the department that runs the refinery and maintains equipment; engineering, which designs and oversees construction projects and equipment upgrades; inspection, part of the maintenance department responsible for equipment meeting standards and regulations; environmental, which ensures refinery operations meet all EPA and state government requirements; diversity and inclusion team, members from all other departments who work together to provide an atmosphere for all employees to feel accepted; quality control laboratory, responsible for quality control of all refinery products; tech service, which consults on technical aspects of the plant; safety, which ensures the refinery is compliant with OSHA regulations; fire and rescue, protects the refinery against fires and responds to emergencies; maintenance mechanical, which maintains all equipment in the plant and also completes small projects; contractors, outside organizations employed by the refinery to assist with large projects; procurement, which is responsible for buying goods and services for the refinery, as well as creating contracts; and accounting, which is responsible for budgeting, tracking and reporting all cash expenditures for the refinery and tracking and reporting all product movement.

The career fair at the refinery started in 2007 and has continued every year except last due to the refinery’s strike.

“It’s usually eighth graders, but we have some freshman this year because we couldn’t have the fair last year,” Cremeans said. “We didn’t want to miss any students this year, and there’s been a great response.”

Cremeans added that eighth graders are targeted for the career fair because it’s a good year to teach them about jobs at the refinery before they go to high school and start to narrow their career goals before college.

Each station had visual or interactive aspects to it to keep the student’s more engaged, such as the accounting station being set up like a lemonade stand and the students getting to tour the Fire and Rescue department’s fire truck.

The career fair continues Monday through Friday until March 11 with sessions from 9-11 a.m. and 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. each day. Besides Chesapeake, other Lawrence County schools attending are Ironton St. Joseph, Rock Hill, Dawson-Bryant and Symmes Valley.