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the United States. A similar comparison was made on living costs, such
as food, utilities, etc. Thus a housing allowance and a cost of living al-
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and average costs at the overseas location could be paid. It was also at-
tractive in that, if an employee and his family were able to rent housing
more cheaply than the average, or controlled their living costs to a level
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who lived at a standard above average had to pay for that out of his own
pocket. I persisted in urging the various operating companies having
employees in foreign service to prepare the information needed so that
we had a location book for each area. Everyone involved agreed it was
a good idea, but no one wanted to push very hard to get the job done.

In the spring of 1970, Chevron had created a new subsidiary
whose function was to explore for and produce oil overseas. The new
organization was called Chevron Overseas Petroleum Inc. The presi-
dent of this new subsidiary was the former Aramco employee who had
become president of Chevron Columbia and later Chevron Venezuela,
D.O. “Swede” Nelson. We had never known each other in Arabia, but
knew a great many Aramco people in common. In the spring of 1971,
Nelson sent the personnel manager of Chevron Overseas on a one-year
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world. He asked for me as personnel manager on a one-year loan from
corporate headquarters. So, I transferred to Chevron Overseas.

I found the number two man in the personnel department to be
a very nice fellow, but incompetent. It developed that, whenever he had
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at the bottom of the pile. After a few months, I found it necessary to
demote him and he was accepted in a corporate personnel department at
a lower level.
I had met Vic Chang, who was Chinese racially, born and reared
in Trinidad, and received college training in Canada. Having worked for
the company subsidiary in Trinidad, he had an understanding of foreign
service employees’ problems. I was able to secure Vic’s transfer from

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