b'C H A P T E R 7S A F ETY I N S I D E A N D O U TS I D E T H E F E N C E Sinitiative. Eventually he had over 2,000people working for him. He had to bal- A Phillips Womanance the practical facts of business withthe unbusiness-like fact that virtuallyeverything the 2,000 people were doinghad never been done before. 10 M y secretarial career began with Phillips Petroleum Company the summer of1960. All new secretaries were trained at Central Facilities as a group,Doan insisted that Phillips employees learning the Phillips procedures of office work.integrate themselves into the communi-ties in which they lived. He bought a My first permanent assignment was in the Project Engineering Department of thehouse as soon as he could and joined the MTR reactor project. The facility was housed in an abandoned temporary con-Presbyterian Church, the Kiwanis Club, struction barracks covered with tar paper, thus its nickname, the Tarpaper Palace.the Idaho Falls Chamber of Commerce, Temperatures rose to well over a hundred degrees in the summer, and winterthe country club, and civic life in gener- found us freezing in this single-walled structure using only tar paper to cover theal. He expected other Phillips people to cracks. The Palace was the farthest distance from the guard house/bus stop. Footfollow his example. travel was over gravel roads and through the MTR reactor building. The dresscode for female workers was dresses, heels, and hose. This made the walk doublyEqually, Doan committed himself to the hard. The wind blew mightily on the desert, and since full skirts and crinolinesPhillips corporate culture, which were the style, many of us would wrap masking tape around the bottom of ourregarded every employee as part of the skirts to keep them down when walking out-of-doors between buildings.far-flung Phillips family. The compa-ny practiced a brand of welfare capital- Pregnant women were not allowed to work near the reactor areas because of theism it had inherited from its founder, radiation. When a woman reported she was pregnant, termination occurred theFrank Phillips. In addition to pension, same day.health-care, and education benefits, thecompany sponsored intramural athletic The Jane Phillips Sorority was a womens group named after the wife of theteams, company picnics, a monthly founder of Phillips Petroleum Company. Monthly business/social meetings weremagazine promoting esprit dcorps, and held at the Bonneville Hotel in Idaho Falls. Yearly convention meetings werememberships in athletic and self- held throughout the country, two of which I attended as a delegate. One trip wasimprovement clubs called the Frank by bus to Odessa, Texas, and the other was by car to Bartlesville, Oklahoma, thePhillips Mens home office of Phillips. Because the company helped toClub and the finance these trips, we stopped at Phillips gas stations andJane Phillips charged our gas to Phillips credit cards. These conventionsSorority for were to educate us on company history and progress as wellwomen, Jane as provide helpful training. We returned to our jobs withhaving been the enthusiasm and more enlightened.founderswife. 11 Myrna PerryA Jane Phillips Society social.Bonneville Museum - Bonneville County Historical Society, Dec. 1956, Ph i n l tro 5 7'