Also in this issue

Super Stars shine

The pursuit of excellence has earned a group of Caltex franchisees Super Star status for their performance in customer service, merchandising compliance and driving operational excellence within their stores. The awards were presented at the 2007 Caltex franchisee conference in September.

Their sites achieved scores of 99 per cent and above in Caltex's All Stars performance management program in which 530 franchisees participated over 16 months. These sites often worked above and beyond the standard requirements in areas such as staff training, business planning and building community awareness with local store marketing.

Caltex franchisee Super Stars are:

New South Wales – Anil and Meena Beri, Kel Campbell, Leo & Tracey Corthals, Kevin & Sandra Crossey, Mick and Leonie Daniels, Kole & Lee Grujovski, Malik & Huma Haidar, Bob and Jill Harrison, Tony & Elena Inannella, John Ibrahim, Chris Lafazanis, Joe & Sonia Lamba, Joseph Nadar, Sandeep & Amandeep Pandher, Nareen & Renuka Patel, Mark & Di Patterson, Cathy Petzer, Tony Rizk, Kiri & Mathani Somasuntharam, Warwick and Ivana Teasdale, Graeme & Marion Whittington.

Queensland – Angela & Trevor Brand, Fred Shurmann, Jim & Leonie Keelan.

Tasmania – Marcus & Jane Raine.

Victoria – Dean Anastasiadas, Nadeer Kaka, Kim & Viola Kunda, Mel & Sandra Owen, Phil & Kerrin Schubert.

Western Australia– Merv & Viv Waddington.

Vortex showcased in finals coverage

Caltex's premium fuel Vortex made a mark of its own during the recent Australian Football League (AFL) finals series broadcast on Channel Seven. The match balls used in games broadcast live during the 2007 finals prominently displayed the Caltex brand, as did post match shots in newspapers and magazines in which the balls appeared, giving the brand exposure around the nation.

A Vortex promotion also ran on Channel Ten's Sports Tonight and Before the Game programs. Viewers were asked to reveal the rituals they observed to "help" their teams, like wearing the same footy socks, sitting in the same seat at each match or wearing a lucky shirt. The idea behind the campaign was to emphasise that Vortex is a high performance ritual that's good for your car.

This has been Caltex's first year of brand activities around the AFL finals. It was aimed at boosting Caltex's and Vortex's brand profile in Victoria, Western Australia and South Australia while reinforcing the high performance attributes of Vortex in New South Wales and Queensland.

Elizabeth Bryan succeeds Dick Warburton

Elizabeth Bryan has been appointed Chair of the Board of Caltex Australia with effect from 1 October 2007. She succeeds Dick Warburton who retired on 30 September but will stay on as a board member until the Caltex AGM in April next year to help effect a smooth transition.

A member of the Caltex Board since July 2002, Elizabeth is also a director of Westpac Banking Corporation, the stockfeed company Ridley Corporation and Chair of UniSuper – the super fund for people who work in the higher education and research sector.

She is one of relatively few senior executives to have successfully operated in both the public and private sectors. Before becoming a professional director, she served as Managing Director of Deutsche Asset Management and its predecessor, the NSW State Superannuation Investment and Management Corporation, in the 1990s.

When Elizabeth joined the board five years ago Caltex was facing considerable challenges: a large debt burden, low margins and a share price at less than $2. She has been with the company while it worked through these problems – refinancing the debt, implementing a cost savings push and, as margins firmed, undertaking two major initiatives: the Woolworths agreement and the refineries' clean fuels transition.

Today the issues she will face as chairman are the same – and brand new. "You always need to be alert and ready for the cyclical downward movements in margins," Elizabeth said. At the same time, she says, Caltex is facing the monetisation of carbon that's coming from the debate on climate change and further pressure – and potential expenditure – to manage emissions and make its products as environmentally friendly as possible.

While the other boards she sits on represent different sectors (financial and agribusiness), what unifies the companies are their values. "I was giving a speech recently and was asked: ‘Why Caltex and Westpac? What's the connection?'," she said. "I said Westpac had a good set of internal values about team work and respect for each other, and a laudable positioning on the environment and the communities in which it operates. And though Caltex was a very different type of business, it had a similar value set. Caltex's values were equally strong and came from concern for safety and emphasis on looking after their people properly."

Elizabeth says that good corporate values are essential for directors to do a good job and for companies to be successful in the long term. "It doesn't matter how much work you put in at a board level, if you are working into a set of values in the company that is not driving in the same direction, then you have an upward battle."

Away from her life as a professional director, Elizabeth likes to relax by visiting her cattle property in central western New South Wales.

Meanwhile the Caltex Board has acknowledged Dick Warburton's valuable contribution to the company and his leadership during a period which has seen substantial improvement in its performance.

Australia sees Starlight magic

A heartwarming documentary capturing the highlights of what has been described as Australia's happiest road trip was screened nationally on the Nine Network on 7 October. Miles of Smiles tells the story of the 50 Towns in 50 Weeks tour, a joint initiative by the Starlight Children's Foundation and Caltex, which bought the magic of Captain Starlight to seriously ill children in some of the most remote parts of Australia.

The "fly on the wall" documentary shows how seriously ill and hospitalised children and their families were touched by Starlight's magic during the year-long tour as the van travelled 40,000 kilometres visiting 106 hospitals in 110 country towns around Australia.

Caltex provided the van, fuel and accommodation for the journey and Caltex people at different locations around the country helped raise $85,000 for Starlight. Caltex has been a major supporter of the Starlight Children's Foundation since 2000 and chose the 50 Towns in 50 Weeks tour to celebrate its 50th year of refining fuel for Australia.

Jill Weekes, CEO of the Starlight Children's Foundation, said since it was established in 1998, the Starlight Children's Foundation has helped millions of children and their families. "This trip was about extending our successful formula to those who may not always get the chance to see Captain Starlight and experience the amazing work they do with sick children," Ms Weekes said.

"We get so much feedback from families and medical teams telling us the child would not have made it through the illness had it not been for Captain Starlight."

Staying safe

To most folks an activity as simple as emptying garbage bins on service station forecourts and replacing the bin liners may not seem to be worth much scrutiny under Caltex's Loss Prevention System (LPS).

But to the team at Caltex Woolworths Northmead in Sydney's west, this unromantic but essential task illustrates how LPS has transformed the way they work, every day.

Each of the Northmead site's ten employees takes turns to do the emptying job, including the manager and assistant manager. And they've used Loss Prevention Observations (LPOs) successfully to ensure they have the right equipment and are using the right lifting techniques.

Acting manager Simone Grace explains: "Because we're doing this work in the middle of the forecourt, we're using safety cones to ensure customers can see them and safety trolleys to carry the necessary equipment like torches if it's being done at night. Having completed LPOs like this you realise how people would sometimes take risks in the past without being fully aware of them – like not using knees to bend and operating on the forecourt without a safety vest for example."

The LPS tools encourage customer service attendants to think about what they do, break the tasks down and identify what they're doing wrong, she says. "It's really helped us enforce the right practices and make us all safer."

Clear evidence, Simone adds, is how the number of back injuries in the workplace has dropped in recent years. "It's one thing to tell someone how they should bend, it's another to go through the process with them so they truly understand."

Every month the Northmead team has an LPS meeting to analyse the LPOs, Near Loss Investigations (NLIs) and Loss Investigations (LIs) they've initiated. On one occasion recently an attendant was helping a customer load groceries on the forecourt. A colleague noticed he wasn't wearing a safety vest, so they made it the subject of an NLI and had a discussion about it at an LPS meeting.

Another useful LPS tool at Northmead is the weekly EH&S forecourt checklist process. Staff check all relevant criteria including no-smoking and mobile-phone warning signs, extinguishers, drainage and emergency stop buttons to make sure equipment is functioning properly. If any risk is identified, the necessary work gets done quickly to eliminate it.