Reacting to the unexpected honor, Ben Markham agreed to receive the L. Douglas Smoot Outstanding Chemical Engineering Alumnus award as an honor to Dr. Smoot. The length and pace of Dr. Smoot's stride in academic, educational, family, church, civic, and even athletic pursuits continues to set a wonderful standard for all that are blessed with his acquaintance.

A native of Spanish Fork, Utah, attending BYU was both convenient and an economic necessity for Ben after graduating from high school in 1964. With good luck, a little effort, and fate, Ben graduated with a bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering in 1971. That same year Dr. Smoot replaced Dr. Pope as the chairman of the BYU Chemical Engineering Department. Ben stayed in the program one additional year, completing a master's degree involving some of the initial research on coal gasification at BYU. He then accepted a position with Humble Oil and Refining in Baytown, Texas. Ben likes to say that he started his professional life as a Humble engineer. His wife, Julie, reminds people that he didn't stay that way for long, Humble changed its name to Exxon later that same year.

While many assignments have been primarily administrative responsibility, Ben's first love remains Chemical Engineering. This can be evidenced during many camps as a scout leader when he spent the night explaining that the wood wasn't actually burning, it was just experiencing pyrolysis from the heat, and the evolving gases were spontaneously combusting as limited by the rate of oxygen mixing. The scouts with Ben continue to pursue the elusive goal of a perfect "smokeless campfire" design. Ben was recently caught explaining liquid-liquid extraction towers to an infant grandson while rocking him to sleep. Julie points out, "He often did that when our kids were young, arguing that it would aid mental development. I don't know about that, but I do know that it puts almost anyone to sleep!"

At Exxon, Ben found the technology and business aspects of oil refining to be a perfect fit with his interests. As Ben started his career, digital process control had just been introduced in the refinery, opening up a whole new world for data hungry, young process engineers. Ben recalls that one of his favorite "pastimes" became reverse engineering process design specifications looking to identify plant bottlenecks and optimizations. During the first 10 years of his career, Ben had a variety of assignments in technical support, process operations, and plant maintenance organizations. He also spent time in Exxon U.S.A. headquarters working on refining circuit optimization. In 1981, Ben was named technical manager of Exxon's refinery located in Bayway, New Jersey. Having served as a missionary in the Northern Far East Mission (Japan), he had requested an opportunity to move to the Far East. Ben believes Texas management considered New Jersey to be a "Far East" assignment.

After a period as manager of Downstream Planning for Exxon U.S.A., in late 1991 Ben was appointed refinery manager for Exxon's refining complex in Baytown, Texas. He points out that the second assignment in Baytown involved significant administrative responsibility, and therefore wasn't nearly as much fun as his initial assignment as a chemical engineer. The Markham family moved to New Jersey for the second time in 1994, when Ben was named Manager of the Refining Department for Exxon Co. International with responsibility for operations at Exxon's 21 refining complexes outside North America. The travel during this assignment was very heavy, resulting in over four years of continuous jet lag. However, there were pluses. Even with five children traveling to and from college in Utah and visiting friends and family throughout the nation, the frequent-flier mileage accounts stayed full. Also, having served as a Bishop (twice) and Aaronic Priesthood leader, Ben found his worldwide travel allowed him to visit many of the young men he knew, including two of his own sons, as they served as missionaries around the world. Highlights included missionary team-ups with his sons in Germany and Italy.

With five of the international refineries in Japan, Ben was also able to return to areas where he had served as a missionary in the late 1960s. His knowledge of Japanese culture and language (though somewhat rusty) allowed him to make a significant contribution as the Japanese refining industry was deregulated and began to compete with international refineries. The Japanese connection was noted by Exxon, and in 1998 Ben was asked to relocate to Japan as Project Executive of an effort to consolidate two large Japanese oil companies, both of whom were majority owned by Exxon. That project was successfully completed in 1999. Ben is currently Manager of Exxon's Japan Regional Planning Center and is looking forward to opportunities that may result from the pending merger of Exxon and Mobil, both of whom have large operations in Japan.

Ben's wife Julie and daughter Corinne live in Tokyo with him and alternate between enjoying and enduring the Far East experience. Ben's oldest son, a BYU Chemical Engineering graduate, works for Foster Wheeler Engineering in Houston, Texas. Three more sons currently attend BYU, but as Ben puts it, being rebellious youth, they've selected majors other than Chemical Engineering. As for future plans, Ben hopes to retire in a few years, then with Julie, "see the world" from behind "white on black" name tags.