Russ Rhodes is an Advisor at Pilko & Associates and has 38+ years of refining and petrochemical experience in various technical, management and leadership positions with Shell Oil. He has had assignments in almost every aspect of the plants, support groups and the business. He has developed a strong grasp of how to combine work processes and people development to deliver results.

His most recent full-time assignment was as the Engineering Manager for Motiva Port Arthur Refinery, the largest in the US. In this assignment, he continued the focus on fixing asset issues with the Expansion project and refocused the organization on how to get work done with consistent application of work processes. These focus areas delivered strong reliability/production performance in 2016 and 2017, among the best in the site’s history. When Saudi Aramco took sole ownership of Port Arthur in 2017, he came back in a consultant role to assist Motiva for two years.

Prior to these assignments, Russ spent 34+ years with Shell in various assignments. These include:

• 10+ years in Olefins Operations Leadership roles
• Assignments in Maintenance, Projects, HSSE, TA, Engineering and Reliability Leadership roles.
• Technical assignments early in his career supporting plant operations, TA and maintenance functions.

His skills include:

• Operations Management
• Maintenance/TA Management
• Technical Leadership
• Talent Management
• Reliability Management
• Work Process implementation and execution

During his career, he combined his passion for people development and consistent work process execution to deliver strong results and applying these learnings to help others do the same is his current focus.

Russ has served in industry and community leadership roles throughout his career. Some roles include:

• Board Member of the Deer Park Chamber of Commerce
• Board Member of the Bay Area Habitat for Humanity
• Board Member of Friendswood Little League and Pony Baseball
• Board Member of Channel Industries Mutual Aid – CIMA

Russ graduated with a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from Christian Brothers University. He also attended the Wharton School of Business Executive Leadership Program.