After an impressive 40 years of service, Max Casada, global quality manager at Phillips 66, is retiring.

Casada joined Conoco Inc. as an engineer at the Ponca City Refinery. He later went on to hold a number of leadership positions across the Denver Refinery, Lake Charles Refinery, and specialties, procurement and major projects divisions. Casada was the craft superintendent over maintenance at the Denver Refinery, and during his time at the Lake Charles Refinery. He was also the operations manager for the NISCO joint venture, and was instrumental in the construction and commissioning of the NISCO Circulating Fluidized Bed Boilers. At the time, they were the largest boilers in the world burning 100 percent petroleum coke.  

Casada later went on to hold such roles as plant manager for the VENCO Moundsville, WV Calcining Plant, global downstream procurement manager, and most recently, corporate QA/QC manager. At the split of ConocoPhillips and Phillips 66, he was instrumental in transitioning all quality management functionality from the former company structure to the new Phillips 66. 

Casada has also been active in crisis management and emergency response, having been active in the emergency operations center for all major gulf hurricanes since Hurricane Katrina, as well as responding to other events when activated. His service has also extended to industry organizations such as American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), Construction Industry Institute (CII), API, AFPM (formerly NPRA), Process Industry Practices (PIP), American Heart Association, and the PVF Roundtable. 

Casada currently sits on the board of directors for the PVF Roundtable, volunteering countless hours to its charitable foundation and helping raise over $1 million dollars in scholarship funding for future PVF industry leaders.

Moving forward, Casada’s responsibilities will be shared between procurement, RBI and major projects.