PLANO, TX: Petrochemical giant Fina will be missing two of its top PR pros and four other high-level executives when it relocates to Houston next year.
PLANO, TX: Petrochemical giant Fina will be missing two of its top
PR pros and four other high-level executives when it relocates to
Houston next year.
Word leaked out earlier this month that several of the company’s most
highly regarded employees have decided to pursue other options rather
than move across the state. Government relations VP Bill Phelps will
retire, while Carla Meadows, the company’s GM of corporate
communications and public affairs, said she plans to resign before the
mid-2000 move. Also retiring are CEO Ronald Haddock and the heads of
Fina’s legal, IT and finance teams.
Parent company TotalFina had given Plano, TX-based employees - who
worked in the new corporate headquarters for only a year - until
December 1 to decide whether to transfer or accept severance packages.
The relocation was announced in September.
According to Maria Martineau, who handles corporate communications and
runs Fina’s charitable foundation, the move won’t necessarily affect the
company’s relationship with Dallas-based Levenson PR. She added that the
rest of the in-house PR staff, which includes two community relations
reps, have yet to announce their decisions regarding relocation.
Similarly undecided is how the company will structure internal PR in
Houston. Both Phelps and Meadows are expected to continue working for
Fina until the relocation.
In the last two years, a series of acquisitions has made Fina an
increasingly smaller part of the overall TotalFina operation. It will
become part of the world’s fourth-largest oil firm next year when its
French parent purchases Elf Aquitaine, also based in France.
