The TAPING RECORDER June 28, 2002 No. 2-06-01
News from and about Taping For The Blind, Inc. www.tapingfortheblind.org

SUNDAY HOURS REVISED--After studying building utilization on Sunday
afternoons, we have revised our Sunday hours. The new Sunday schedule is 7
a.m. to 12:00 p.m. The volunteers who had been coming in on Sunday
afternoons have been able to work around this change, and this also offers
the advantage of saving a few dollars.

HOLIDAY SCHEDULE--The building will be open from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. on July
4, 2002. We hope you have a safe and wonderful Independence Day!

APPOINTMENT ANNOUNCED--Taping volunteer Bob Bartlett has been appointed as
Chairman of the Houston Commission on Disabilities. This commission serves
in an advisory capacity for the Mayor and City Council members on issues
concerning the disability community.

DID YOU KNOW?--We are constantly amazed by our volunteers and the lives
they have lived. This time we turn our focus on Jim Wood, a very tall
gentleman who reads the Chronicle regularly. Below are some of the details
of Jim's life:

For the last six years Jim Wood has been reading the Chronicle on Friday and
Sunday. His accent indicates he was born and raised in England.

Jim flew with the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy in WW2 and after the war
returned to Oxford University to complete his honors degree. He read Geology
in the School of Natural Science. He "came down" in 1949 and was later
awarded a Masters degree.

He must have had an early interest in exploration because he rejected job
offers from Shell and BP for international assignments and emigrated to
Canada to look for work there in their new oil industry.

He joined Imperial Oil, the Canadian subsidiary of Exxon, and after eleven
years of various technical assignments in western Canada he created and
managed successful exploration programs in Saskatchewan, Alberta, British
Columbia and the Northwest Territories. In his last assignment in Dawson
Creek he established a liaison with J.R. Jackson, the exploration manager of
Exxon's Los Angeles office, and started a regional study of the sedimentary
basins of the arctic in Alaska and Canada. The study now comprises all of
the world's arctic basins, including Russia, and yielded the discovery of
Alaska's Prudhoe Bay oilfield, 20-25% of U.S. production today.

Jim credits J.R. Jackson with the Prudhoe Bay discovery although today there
are many johnny-come-lately pretenders. The difficult part of any exploration
venture, in any field, is the early recognition of possibilities. This
characteristic seems to be part of Jim's psyche.

In 1964 Exxon formed a new worldwide exploration subsidiary in New York and
Jim was transferred there over one weekend. Apparently the company had some
difficulty with the INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) but
ultimately persuaded the government that there were no American contenders
with comparable experience for the job.

During his three years with Esso Exploration, the company established the
first production in the Australian Bass Straits and British North Sea,
established contract positions in several other countries and documented
concepts which still are the foundation of the worldwide exploration programs
of the world's largest oil company.

In 1967 Jim was transferred to Esso Libya to identify the most prospective
acreage that Libya had assigned to Esso Libya competitors in 1966. Although
Esso had established Libya as an oil producer with the Zelten discovery, the
government awarded new concession to others in 1966. Jim's exploration
department in Libya identified a concession awarded to a small California
company, Occidental, as the key block to pursue. Exxon sent a Board member to
LA to negotiate with Armand Hammer but the deal fell through and Oxy was
forced to drill their prospect themselves, something that they, like most
promoters had no intention of doing initially. The well was a major
discovery and established Oxy as a significant player in the oil business.

Jim was transferred back to the States, this time to Houston, as one of the
Humble company's two Exploration Operation Managers here.

Jim resigned from Exxon in 1970 and joined Cities Service as their VP in
charge of all international operations. From 1978 to 1982, he was an
Executive VP in charge of all Cities' upstream business including operations
in the US. He resigned from Cities when a good friend of his, the Downstream
EVP, acceded to the presidency. Jim felt that the future of the company
rested on upstream rather than downstream success. A few months later the
company was sold, ironically, to Jim's old nemesis, Occidental Petroleum.

To the surprise of everyone in industry, including Jim's erstwhile friends at
Exxon, the hard-nosed Larry Rawl, Chairman of Exxon, re-hired Jim in a higher
position than he held when he quit 10 years before. Jim became the Deputy
Manager of the Producing Department, responsible for the worldwide
exploration and production function of Exxon and all its subsidiaries.

Jim retired from Exxon in 1987 with his reputation as an exploration
visionary intact. He strongly recommended an aggressive position in the
deepwater Gulf of Mexico. The future value of reserves there will be largely
contingent on the price of oil when the reserves are produced, so the jury is
still out. Exxon acquired what Jim calls an acceptable position. But, again
ironically, as in the case of Occidental, the company who acquired Jim's
recommended position was the company who first offered him a job, Shell.

After retirement Jim spent some time in the domestic oil industry but has
concluded that he has been spoiled by his access to vast sums of risk capital
from the big boys in the industry. He detested being forced to explain ad
infinitum to laymen investors the potential, and the risks, of modest
domestic programs.

Jim's interest in helping those afflicted with blindness probably stems from
his experience with the father of his first wife. Mr. Taylor was severely
wounded in the First World War, lost both legs and one eye. After 20 years
in a wheel
chair, this indomitable gentleman acquired an automobile with special hand
controls. His problem then became learning to drive safely with no depth
perception from his one good eye. Jim became the only person with the
patience to
ride with him and develop rules of thumb that enabled him to drive safely,
even in London's heaviest traffic.

The word indomitable is one that Jim uses all the time when talking to his
friends about our clients in Taping For The Blind. Jim has teamed up with Dr.
Ed Bradley and they are inventing a business that can be pursued by unsighted
people. Jim has his exploration vision about where this can lead and the
indomitable persona of Dr. Bradley will make it happen.
***
Thanks for sharing this with us, Jim!

OUR SYMPATHY--The sympathy of the entire Taping family is extended to the
family and friends of Taping volunteer Marcia Corn who passed away on June
14, 2002.

SUPER SUBS--No, this isn't about foot-long sandwiches. With summer here we
want to thank you who help Jim Martinez, Radio Manager, by your
availability for substituting for other volunteers who are on
vacation. This helps Jim a lot and keeps our programming consistent for
our clients. Thank you so much!

JOIN THE CROWD--If you are not receiving this publication electronically
through your e-mail account and would like to, here is what you do. Send a
blank e-mail note to tbi-houston-subscribe@yahoogroups.com, and then reply
and send the message from Yahoo! Groups insuring you want the service. It
is just that simple!

RLB