taking a different track

Born and raised in a railroad town, ExxonMobil’s newest director rose to the top of one of America’s premier communications companies.

“I had a lot of good bosses during my career,” says Edward E. Whitacre Jr. “Why they kept promoting me was a mystery, but I guess they saw something.”

What his supervisors saw in Whitacre, ExxonMobil’s newest board member, were talent, leadership and persistence.

Whitacre is a native of Ennis, Texas, a town of about 20,000 that lies some 40 miles south of Dallas.

“It was a typical small town when I was growing up,” Whitacre says. “There was one school, everyone knew each other, and life revolved around the railroad. People just assumed that when they finished high school, they’d go to work for the Southern Pacific.”

Whitacre’s parents had higher expectations for their son.

“My father was a locomotive engineer for 50 years,” he says. “He never finished high school. He told me he did not want me working for the railroad. Both my parents were insistent that I get a college degree.”

Whitacre enrolled at Texas Tech University in Lubbock and graduated with a degree in industrial engineering. “I picked Tech because it had a good engineering school, I liked Lubbock, and the tuition was only $75,” he says.

Rising through the ranks

In 1963, Whitacre went to work for Southwestern Bell Telephone Company as a facility engineer. His job was to “make sure the equipment was in place to serve the customer, whether the customer was a house, an apartment or an office building.”

He moved on to a series of positions in the company’s operational departments in Texas, Arkansas and Kansas. He headed the company’s Kansas division for three years before moving on to corporate headquarters in St. Louis.

“We moved 19 times,” he says. “That’s why traveling is not high on my retirement to-do list.”

Whitacre held a number of key leadership positions, including group president, vice president of revenues and public affairs, vice chairman and chief financial officer, and president and chief operating officer. He became chairman and chief executive officer in 1990.

In 1995, Southwestern Bell became SBC Communications. In succeeding years, it acquired three of the seven “Baby Bells” that emerged from the breakup of AT&T in 1984. The long-distance service resulting from the split was called AT&T. SBC acquired that company in 2005, then took the AT&T name for the entire organization.

With the name change, Whitacre became chairman and CEO of AT&T, the nation’s largest provider of wireless, broadband and traditional phone services.

Whitacre retired in 2007 after a 44-year career and 17 years at the helm of AT&T and its predecessor companies. At the time, the Associated Press described him as “an outspoken Texan known for blunt remarks on industry topics.”

“That’s a bit of an exaggeration,” says Whitacre, “but you do have to let people know what you’re thinking.”

Family and community

Whitacre and his wife, Linda, make their home in San Antonio, Texas. They have two daughters – one is a lawyer in Dallas, the other an elementary school teacher in San Antonio – and four grandchildren.

Whitacre is a member of the Boy Scouts Advisory Council and a trustee on the Advisory Board of the San Antonio United Way group. He’s a member of the Business Council and serves on the boards of the Institute for International Economics, Anheuser-Busch Companies and Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation.

Whitacre has chaired the Texas Tech board of regents and counts himself a loyal alumnus. “I still have pretty close ties there,” he says.

To relax, Whitacre turns to golf. He also reads several newspapers each day and usually has a book nearby.

He enjoys hunting and fishing. The hunting trips include his chocolate Labrador retriever, Lucille, who “loves to hunt and take naps.”

Coming to ExxonMobil

Whitacre says that while his knowledge of the petroleum industry is limited, he feels he brings some useful experience to the job of director.

“I believe I understand what makes big organizations tick,” he says. “ExxonMobil is a huge company, and that parallels my own corporate experience.”

Whitacre describes ExxonMobil as a “very disciplined company.”

“They’re engineering-oriented and very careful about capital investment. They have a very thoughtful planning process, and they execute their plans well.”

Whitacre is especially impressed by the ExxonMobil culture.

“People are proud of their company,” he says, “and you won’t find that everywhere. The company treats its employees very well, and that pays off.”