Bermudian Mark Fields will continue an Island tradition in March when he takes over as general manager of Esso Bermuda.

Current general manager Ed Edelson, an American, explained that during the company's 93-year history on the Island, Bermudians have almost exclusively run the company.

In an exclusive interview with The Royal Gazette, Mr. Edelson and Mr. Fields spoke about Esso Bermuda's recent remodelling of many of the Island's service stations, and what can be expected in the future. Mr. Fields started working for Esso two years ago after leaving his position as the terminal manager for the Public Transportation Board, where he was in charge of running the Island's buses. He said: “I saw an ad in the newspaper and I decided that it was time for a career change, at age 50, and I was given the opportunity to join the Exon Mobil/Esso Bermuda family.”

Mr. Edelson said Esso Bermuda is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Exon Mobil.

When asked when Mr. Fields was identified as a possible replacement for Mr. Edelson, he said: “I've had my eye on Mark for many months now, and I identified that he had the potential, and the energy, and the smarts to take on this position. As with anything in Esso Bermuda it is very thoroughly reviewed so it is not a snap decision.”

Mr. Edelson also said the company had planned on making the transition later in the year but some opportunities accelerated the transition to March 15.

Mr. Edelson said: “When I came here three and a half years ago one of my objectives was to identify a candidate for the general manger's position and to develop and train them.

“Esso Bermuda has been here 93 years and for all but the last few, there has always been a Bermudian in charge. And we wanted to return to that.”

Mr. Edelson added: “I can say on behalf of Esso Bermuda that we are very pleased with having found someone like Mark and we look forward to Mark continuing to maintain and improve on the quality of our operation here in Bermuda.”

During his time as general manager, Mr. Eddleson has overseen the renovations of several of the Island's service stations, and he said: “I look back a little bit and say we have made some excellent progress in the area of improving our facilities. We have modernised the interior of the Esso City, also known as 24/7, and then more recently Crawl Hill which has been a smashing success. “Under the watchful eye of Mark, we have made improvements to our pier facility, which takes a lot of abuse from the elements, and we have improved our tankage which is key to our operations, (the large tanks for storage of fuels, especially for Belco) and our pipeline between our terminal and Belco.

“We have made a lot of investment and I think we have done very well working with our station operators to develop this concept called the ‘Tiger Market Club' as a way to demonstrate and bring to our customers added value in the form of the convenience store, promotions, and value.”

As far as future ventures, Mr. Fields said: “In the pipeline we have the Collector's Hill service station, which we will be starting to tear down at the end of this month and erect a similar style of service station as the one at Crawl Hill, and we also have objectives for the Warwick station. I think that will hold us for a while, and we will look at the remaining stations after that.”

He added: “One or two of the other objectives was the continuity of the operations and our focus mainly is on safety and the flawless execution of our operation, which includes receiving the product by ship, the delivery of the product and dispensing it to the customer at the service station.”

Safety is our number one job, it is a very high priority here in Bermuda and also with Exon Mobil itself. Mr. Edelson noted: “On December 31, we celebrated 21 years without a loss time accident, that is an accident that is sufficient that someone couldn't come back to work the next day.”

Mr. Field added: “And I believe you will see as we improve and modernise the stations, we will also want to energise our employees to give good customer service and to make sure that we will be the station of choice in everyone's mind.”

As far as how the global war on terrorism may affect local energy prices, Mr. Edelson said: “Our supply comes from the Caribbean refineries. Mostly Trinidad and St. Croix. That is not to say we don't look around on an ongoing basis to see if we can get a better deal.”

And Mr. Edelson added that wartime situations do lead to commodity price rises, but said: “So if something goes wrong in Indonesia for example, that can affect prices in England, so we are susceptible to all of that, but I don't think Mark or I feel comfortable talking about where this war will go.”

Mr. Edelson also said one of the company's philosophies was training for employees and said: “In helping Mark take on this new challenge, there has been a lot of training provided to him already, much of it overseas in places as far flung as Ecuador and Guatemala. But there is more to come as there are a lot of new areas that Mark will be responsible for, and that is part of Exxon Mobil's commitment to all of our employees, to give people the right tools and training to do their job.”