A former Shell boss in Aberdeen has joined the board of Wood Group.
Tom Botts, who spent 35 years with the oil giant, has been appointed as a non-executive director of the Aberdeen-based energy service firm.
The American, born in Wyoming, started his career with Shell as a production engineer before becoming treasurer of the company’s US activities.
Mr Botts later returned to the UK and became managing director of Shell Expro in Aberdeen, during which time he also served as chairman of the Step Change in Safety body.
While in the Granite City, Mr Botts oversaw hundreds of millions of pounds of Shell Expro investment in new fields – including the Penguins, Goldeneye, Scoter and Carrack developments – but also managed the company through rounds of job cuts which led to hundreds of redundancies in Aberdeen.
Mr Botts left Aberdeen in 2003 to lead Shell’s European exploration and production business in The Hague, and in 2009 was appointed as global head of Shell’s manufacturing business, including its worldwide refineries and chemical complexes.
He retired from the oil giant in October last year, but his other roles include a non-executive post on the board of US engineering firm EnPro Industries and as a council member of the Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University, in Houston, Texas.
Wood Group chairman Allister Langlands said: “We are delighted to welcome Tom to the board. His in-depth experience of the international oil and gas industry, both in upstream and in petrochemicals and refineries, will be of great value to the group.”
Wood Group, which had turnover of nearly £4billion in 2011, employs 43,000 people in over 50 countries.