Worcester, Mass. - Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) announced today that alumnus Michael J. Dolan, president of ExxonMobil Chemical Company and vice president of ExxonMobil Corporation, has been elected to the university's Board of Trustees.
Dolan heads ExxonMobil's chemical business, which is a global leader in technology, product quality, and customer service with petrochemical manufacturing and marketing operations in more than 150 countries around the world. Its products include olefins, aromatics, fluids, synthetic rubber, polyethylene, polypropylene, oriented polypropylene packaging films, plasticizers, and synthetic lubricant basestocks.
Dolan earned a BS degree in chemical engineering at WPI in 1975. He joined Mobil Oil Corporation in 1980 at the Paulsboro, New Jersey, research laboratory. Over the next 13 years, he worked in a variety of engineering and managerial positions supporting Mobil's worldwide refineries, including the Mobil Adelaide refinery in Australia.
He joined Mobil's worldwide petrochemicals division in 1993 in Houston, Texas. Dolan progressed through a variety of strategic planning and business management positions in the aromatics, olefins, and polyethylene businesses before becoming vice president and general manager for petrochemicals in the Americas in 1998.
Following the Exxon and Mobil merger in 1999, Dolan became the Middle East and Africa regional director of ExxonMobil Chemical Company while located in Brussels, Belgium. In 2001, he moved to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia where he served as executive vice president for ExxonMobil Saudi Arabia. He returned to the United States in 2003 as deputy to the president of ExxonMobil Refining and Supply Company in Fairfax, Va. He assumed his current responsibilities in 2004.
Dolan has served on WPI's Chemical Engineering Advisory Board since 1999. He was awarded the university's Robert H. Goddard Alumni Award for Outstanding Professional Achievement at his 30th class reunion in 2005.
"Mike Dolan brings to our board a wealth of experience in research and in management at a corporation that is a leader in the energy and petrochemical business," said WPI President and CEO Dennis Berkey. "His extensive international responsibilities will help guide our global studies programs as well as our programs in chemical and environmental engineering. We are proud and grateful to have such an accomplished alumnus join our board."
Dolan holds an MBA degree from Drexel University in Philadelphia. He is a registered professional engineer in New Jersey and Texas.
He is a past director of the American Plastics Council and the Petrochemical Division of the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association. He is currently on the board of directors of the American Chemistry Council and the Society of Chemical Industry. Dolan is active in the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy Celebration of Reading Program and the United Way. He served on the leadership team for the 2005-06 United Way of Texas Gulf Coast Campaign.
A Massachusetts native, he resides in Houston with his wife, Debbie.
