Brian MacDonald knows a little something about the pain of a factory closing.
He grewup in a small coal-mining town in Nova Scotia. His father worked in a mine. It’s a tough way to make a living. It’s an even tougher one to lose. But the company that owned the mine shut it down. It caused a lot of pain and suffering.
MacDonald survived. But he remembers that feeling.
Which is why he knows how all those workers at Sunoco’s Marcus Hook refinery feel when the company decided to get out of the refinery business and shut down its iconic Delco plant.
MacDonald is their boss. He’s the CEO of Sunoco.
Yesterday I had a chance to meet him.
The 15th floor of 1818 Market Street doesn’t much look like a Nova Scotia coal mine. Or the Marcus Hook refinery for that matter. That’s where Sunoco’s corporate offices are. Specatcular view of the city’s skyline from thier conference room.
MacDonald hasn’t forgotten where he came from. Or Marcus Hook either, for that matter.
I was joined by staff writer Kathleen Carey and columnist Gil Spencer. We’ve spent a lot of time over the course of the past year writing about Sunoco.
You might remember that it was almost one year ago, in fact the Tuesday morning after Labor Day, that MacDonald’s predecessor Lynn Elsenhans announced the company’s intention to get out of the refining business. Sunoco said it would put its Marcus Hook and South Philly refineries on the market. If a buyer did not come forward, they would be shuttered.
One year later, Marcus Hook is a shell of its old self. Hundreds have lost their jobs.
Tied into the Labor Day weekend, we decided to take a look at what has been a tumultuous year in the refeinery business in this region.
As part of that, we certainly wanted to tell Sunoco’s side of this story. Carey tried repeatedly to get Sunoco officials to talk. Then yesterday morning we got a call - could we be downtown at 4:15?
I don’t want to give away everything we talked about with MacDonald. Carey and Spencer will do that on Sunday. But I will tell you this. I was impressed.
MacDonald makes a compelling case for what the company did. That does not mean he doesn’t feel for the workers who have been affected. I can assure you he does.
Our three-part series starts on Sunday with a look at how people came together in an effort to save the local refineries. We’ll also profile MacDonald. On Monday we’ll get the union’s side of what happened, and the deals that saved South Philly, as well as the Conoco-Phillips refinery in Trainer. On Tuesday we’ll profile one family’s struggle with being laid off from the Hook refinery.
MacDonald has a message for the people of Marcus Hook. He hasn’t forgotten you either. You can read all about it on Sunday.
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