A Look at Annuitant Author Owen Oxley
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Author: Owen Oxley
Released 4 November 2007
Owen Oxley, soon to celebrate his 80th birthday, has been connected to Aramco in a variety of ways for the past 58 years. It began with his joining the company in 1949 at 505 Park Avenue, New York City. He traveled to the ‘field’ in 1950 where he worked in the Accounting, Exploration and Public Relations Departments, all at Dhahran. He married Wanda Marshall in Bahrain in 1953 and their daughter Cassandra was born in Dhahran in January of 1955.
He resigned in June of that year and eventually joined a newspaper where he wrote a number of features about Arabia. With help from his personal photo collection, Oxley shed light on a land that was still relatively unknown to much of the world. Later, he became a public relations consultant to an international construction firm and returned to the ‘field’ on a brief assignment in 1979 when the firm was hired to build a highway into the Rub' al-Khali. The project was postponed, but the company stayed on for several years building other, smaller projects.
Oxley continued to write -- and illustrate -- timely articles on and about Saudi Arabia and Aramco for a variety of newspapers and magazines. His wife and daughter returned to Saudi Arabia in 2000 for the first in-country reunion of Aramcons. The two were overwhelmed by the changes and developments that had taken place since their departure in 1955.
Owen retired in 1992 and moved his family to Minnneapolis, MN where he began writing a number of travel and other features for U.S. newspapers and magazines. It was during this time that he started planning a book on the Aramco of fifty years ago. As his work neared completion, Oxley subsequently attended several reunions of both Expats and Brats at Pinehurst, Branson and Asheville. Final copies of the book were available for the first time at the Asheville Reunion where it was received exceedingly well.
Owen Oxley hopes that by making his book available through AramcoExPats.com he will be able to get in touch with annuitants who may not have had the pleasure of attending a reunion. Until now, chatting with Oxley at these events was the only way to learn of the book's existence. Now living in Norfolk, CT, he looks forward to attending the 75th Anniversary Reunion in Las Vegas next year.