Monday morning, the first official day of the spring break trip started early for the Global Leaders, the group headed out to Spring, Texas to check out Exxon Mobilís headquarters. The day began with a delicious and hearty breakfast needed to survive the eventful day ahead. An overview of the company kicked off a series of presentations, where we were informed on how Exxon structures their projects and teams and how are restructuring in order to maximize the value of their products and adapt to their changing market. Five Illinois alumni presented on their Exxon career thus far and highlighted their major accomplishments while also explain why they are passionate about their role at the company. Many of the employees stress how they were able to take advantage of the companyís global presence to get the opportunity to work as expats.

After learning about the different departments, projects, and some possible career routes available at Exxon, the group headed of the Exxon CAVE. This is breakthrough in augmented reality that provides a multitude of services to Exxon. One of Exxonís geologist explain the technology and need behind the CAVE; It helps train employees, communicate with clients, increases safety and planning on projects. Many of the Global Leaders got to use to tool to learn how it used by Exxon.

A campus tour began shortly after; 2018 GLCM alumni Jalal Karaziwan showed us around. The campus is an 385 wooded acre campus with state of the art facilities including offices, laboratories, wellness centers, retail, dining, and even child development centers. The campus just opened in 2014 and houses about 10,00 employees which comes from as departments of the Upstream, Downstream, Chemicals, and XTO Energy companies, along with the support groups of those companies. All buildings on the campus are LEED Gold standards. The campus itself provides employees with a convenient and positive work environment. The iconic center piece of the campus is the energy center which is a hollow 10,00 ton floating cube which greets visitors from the entrance.

The day finished off with lunch at one of the dining halls on campus. This hall had extensive options which were able to any accommodate dietary restrictions the group had. The weather was perfect for eating outside, much needed after a long harsh midwestern winter. During lunch, the group got to interact with some of the employees who gave presentations earlier in the day for a more personal ancedotes about their experiences and time at Exxon.

A big thank you to ExxonMobil for hosting us!

Blog by Adriana Campa