Aramco Expats

Retirees Gather to Recall the Good Times

1. Community
2. Aramco Annuitant Reunions

Author: Arthur Clark (Saudi Aramco News)
Released 20 October 2008

LAS VEGAS, Nevada, October 15, 2008 -- More than 1,000 retirees and family members celebrated old friendships and Saudi Aramco’s 75th anniversary at the 26th biennial Annuitants Reunion here recently.

Old friends Linda Esposito and Linda Thorstenson exchange greetings at the Annuitants Reunion in Las Vegas. (Photo by Michael Markovic)

Even in a city famous for its glittering attractions, attendees spent most of their time sharing conversation and laughter — at sites all over the venue, the Paris Hotel, at golf, tennis and bridge tournaments, and at the popular Sideline Suq — from dawn to well after dusk.

The event, hosted by Karen and Albert Fallon, was titled Jabal Las Vegas 2008 and was held from Sept. 29-Oct. 2. Aramco Services Co. (ASC) in Houston, Texas, sponsored the Welcome Dinner and the Gala Festival banquet.

In a letter to all, Saudi Aramco president and CEO Abdallah S. Jum‘ah said the Las Vegas reunion was “particularly special” since it came during the company’s diamond-jubilee year.

“While Saudi Aramco marks 75 years of providing the energy that enriches and empowers life around the globe, what we truly celebrate are the men and women whose knowledge, abilities, skills and ideas are behind our proud tradition of Energy for Generations,” he wrote. “It means a great deal to me, on the occasion of your reunion, to congratulate and thank you for your role in this great milestone.”

Geologist Jim Kline views a collection of photos shot by Bert Seal when he worked for Aramco from 1955-60. (Photo by Arthur Clark)

Jum‘ah said annuitants and their families working in the Kingdom and around the world had “helped create the exciting history that will be Saudi Aramco’s gateway into the next 75 years and beyond. You may be gone from Saudi Aramco, but in a deep sense, you never really left us.

“Your ‘human energy’ is an enduring legacy felt every day and everywhere at Saudi Aramco.”

In remarks at the Gala, ASC associate general counsel Brian Macbeth expressed the same deep appreciation for retirees’ contributions over the years, “not only to our company and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, but also to our industry and to the world.” He also briefed attendees on the company’s massive capacity-expansion program and thanked the reunion hosts for organizing the event.

Fittingly, the reunion specially honored the “old-timers” — those with badge numbers of five digits or fewer — including a handful of men and women who joined the company in the 1940s.

The guest with the earliest service date was 89-year-old Fred Hilton, a petroleum engineer who signed on in 1943 and stayed until 1958, with assignments in San Francisco and New York in between. “I feel so fortunate to be part of this,” he said, explaining that he’d been attracted to the company by “the people and the professional environment.”

Buddies Bobby Riley, left, and Neil Tarrant laugh it up at Jabal Las Vegas 2008.
(Photo by Michael Markovic)

“Here I was — 23 years old and deposited in the middle of the most wonderful oil area of the world,” he said. “Can you imagine how happy I was?” Hilton and his late wife, Patricia, had three children in Dhahran: Jamela, Randa and John.

Fellow petroleum engineer John Calligeros, 83, quickly linked up with Hilton, with whom he’d formed a close friendship when he arrived in 1947. Calligeros, who retired from Aramco after a 38-year career, said he and Hilton were among “the last of the Mohicans” and he fondly remembered old colleagues who were no longer around.

At the Sideline Suq, Ali Baluchi fielded questions about the 2009 Annuitants Reunion in Saudi Arabia, scheduled for March 9-18. Baluchi, who retired in 1990 after 41 years on the job, chairs that event’s organizing committee.

Sarah and Charles Hancock collect their reunion gear as Virginia Henson, center, and Pat Christensen register them for the reunion.
Photo by Michael Markovic)

Next door, annuitant Dorothy Miller, 92, was present in spirit if not in person at an exhibition of black-and-white photographs she shot during her time with the company between 1947 and 1979. Groups of attendees paused to view a dozen photo enlargements, mainly from the Eastern Province, or watched a video display of pictures paired with Saudi Aramco’s 75th-anniversary film.

Eighty-eight-year-old Elizabeth Nelson probably summed up the joys of reunion best at the Farewell Breakfast. Nelson, who worked as a medical lab technician from 1948-53, first with Tapline and then with Aramco, called the get-together “a real fun trip. … The fun of it was seeing people.”

(Article by Arthur Clark)