President's Message
Kevin Hostler, President and CEO

Valdez project offers environmental, safety benefits

There are times when the job becomes more than a job— when it is not simply a matter of good engineering or regulatory compliance or cost savings. Sometimes, a job is the right thing to do. That is absolutely the case with the Ballast Water Treatment (BWT) renovations at the Valdez Marine Terminal.

When I first came to Alyeska in October 2005, I had a few projects on my list that I wanted to accomplish in my tenure with the company. Near the top of that list was renovating the BWT. I am extremely pleased to announce that we achieved a major milestone with the successful startup of the Vapor Control System for BWT tanks 93 and 94 (see cover story).

Our goals for the project were simple: to improve the safety of our operations and meet our permit requirements for air emissions. We worked closely with our regulators and stakeholders to ensure they were informed of our plans and understood the benefits of the modifications.

This project epitomizes our core values of safety and environmental stewardship. We recognized the need to reduce the risk associated with emissions, and our employees did a bang-up job in designing creative engineering solutions for this project. Credit goes to all of the people who have been involved with this project, developing risk assessments and executing the work.

This project and the dedication of all the employees involved in the achievement brought to mind the words of Theodore Roosevelt:

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly.”

To me this quote aptly describes the efforts of our workers to improve a project because it mattered to them, their coworkers and their community. To them, I say thank you for a job well done.