Doug White reflects on 40 years in oil business

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  • Susie and Doug White of Ira are pictured with some of the oil business memorabilia he collected during his 40 years of employment.
    Susie and Doug White of Ira are pictured with some of the oil business memorabilia he collected during his 40 years of employment.
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Doug and Susie White’s roots are deep in Scurry County.
Three generations of his family have called Scurry County home. Her family moved here in 1915. They are both graduates of Ira High School and their two sons, Rodney and Ronal, are also graduates of Ira.
Doug White has worked in the oilfield for 40 years and has been employed with five different companies.
He also worked many “side jobs,” including refereeing high school football and basketball games and college basketball for 34 years.
While many of his oilfield friends accepted transfers throughout the world just to keep a job, Doug White said he was fortunate to always work in the county.
Despite the the ups and downs of the oilfield business, the Whites said, “the oil business has been good to us.”
White said his father once told him not to work on pulling units or oil rigs.
At the age of 14, White began working for the oil rig operating company his father co-owned.
“I was given a variety of jobs to do and I learned how to weld,” he said. 
After marrying Susie, Doug White worked for E.D. Walton Construction while attending Howard College.
He later worked for Ingersoll Rand Compressor Services at the Sun Gas plant, which is now known as the Kinder Morgan gas plant.
Doug White said an electrical outage during a blizzard shut down the plant. As the area foreman, he was responsible for getting the compressors working again. Susie White along with Rodney, who was one at the time, accompanied her husband to the plant for safety purposes. However, work proceeded without incident. 
He later worked at Johnny Allen’s Machine Shop in Roscoe as a machinist repairing oilfield equipment. He also sold parts and one of his clients, General Crude Oil, later became one of his employers
White said he quit Ingersoll Rand Compressor Services to spend more time with his family,  which by then included another son, Ronal.
However, his oilfield experience led to him being hired as the lead plant operator at General Crude Oil’s gas plant, a position he held from March 1976 through February 1983.
From 1983-89, White successfully bid on a plant instrument tending job. His daily 120-mile, round-trip commute to the Salt Creek Gas plant included carpooling with fellow employees.
“I wore out several vehicles,” he said. “But it was sure worth it.”
At the Salt Creek plant, White worked as a materials coordinator/planner scheduler and helped set up the pipe yard and warehouse. Every part had to be cataloged, bar coded and stored in one, he said.
“Redman Pipe and Supply helped us mark each part with a bar code,” White said.
While a carbon dioxide injection plant was being constructed from 1991-93, White said all of the gas plant facilities had to be converted to accept the gas.
“Well flow lines were upsized from two inches to three inches,” he said. 
He also prepared the annual audit because the equipment in the yard was taxable, but what was in the field was not. 
“We were usually very accurate with our audits,” he said. 
In 1994, White returned to the gas plant as a technician. One year later, he began training to operate the the computer system that ran the gas plant.
“The DCS3000 was a massive computer that controlled 2,800 devices at the plant,” he said. 
He served as the operations foreman of the ExxonMobil gas plant from 1999-2006. In 2006, White served as a production technician at Oxy Permian’s Salt Creek facility.
He later moved to the Sharon Ridge Field — which was much closer to his home — after his wife developed heart problems.
Throughout his career, White experienced a few “close calls” on the job.
Those included a baffle blowing off a hot oil heater and equipment freezing during a winter storm.
There might have been more incidents, but he said the oil companies always emphasized safety.
“They even offered incentives for the best safety slogans,” he said. “All employees had to update safety training every one to three years. The safety tips also carried over into our homes.”
The only negative mark on White’s 40-year safe driving record was when he hit a turkey and cracked his company truck’s windshield.
He retired from ExxonMobil in 2006 and earlier this year, he retired from Oxy Permian.
The Whites, who have worked throughout their marriage, have been willing to help young people. They have had young people work on their farm and Doug White has talked to them about the “choices” they make will last a lifetime.
Rodney White and his wife, Deana, and Ronal White and his wife, Ashley, are planning a retirement party and dance on Feb. 27 at the Wagon Wheel Ranch.
The Whites have three grandchildren, Rowdy White, Kayley Poteet White and Riley White, and two adopted grandchildren, Bronc Darnell and Braxton McClurg.
The couple purchased a travel trailer and plan to visit their grandchildren as often as possible.
Doug White said he will once again help prepare the brisket and sausage for the April 30 Scurry County Senior Citizens Center May Day fundraiser. 
The Whites and other ExxonMobil retirees have been preparing the meat for the past 19 years.