Lee Raymond

Lee Roy Raymond (born August 13, 1938) is an American businessman and was the chief executive officer (CEO) and chairman of ExxonMobil from 1999 to 2005. He had previously been the CEO of Exxon since 1993. He joined the company in 1963 and served as president from 1987 and a director beginning in 1984. While at Exxon, Raymond was one of the most outspoken executives in the United States against regulation to curtail global warming. While casting doubt on climate change in public, internal Exxon research pointed to the role of human activity in climate change and the dangers of climate change which was characterized in the PBS Frontline three-part documentary "The Power of Big Oil". Early life and education Lee Raymond was born in Watertown, South Dakota on August 13, 1938. He graduated from Watertown High School in 1956. Raymond received a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1960. Raymond went on to earn his PhD in chemical engineering from the University of Minnesota. He was awarded an honorary doctorate from the same university in 2001. Raymond met his wife, Charlene née Hocevar, while studying at the University of Wisconsin–Madison; she was pursuing and later earned a degree in journalism. Career Raymond began working for Exxon in 1963. Raymond became a director of Exxon in 1984 and in 1987 he became the President of the company. In 1993, he became CEO succeeding Lawrence G. Rawl and held this post until 2005. He negotiated the merger with Mobil that became effective on January 1, 2000, and gave birth to the new ExxonMobil company. In 2003, when approaching the age of 65, the mandatory retirement age for executives at ExxonMobil, the board of directors requested him to stay in his position two more years, in order to prepare his succession, after the post-merger reorganisation period. On August 14, 2005, Raymond announced that he would retire at the end of 2005 as ExxonMobil's Chairman and CEO, two years later than the usual mandatory retirement age of 65 for the company executives. ExxonMobil president Rex W. Tillerson succeeded Raymond on 1 January 2006. On April 14, 2006, it was reported that Raymond's retirement package was worth about $400 million, the largest in history for a U.S. public company.