Fueling Futures at Phillips 66

Bauer Grad Students Tour Phillips 66 HQ, Strengthen Recruitment Ties

By Megan McKinley
Published on October 28, 2025

Bauer College graduate students recently had the opportunity to visit Phillips 66 headquarters in Houston to tour the property, learn more about company culture and show employers exactly what Bauer students are made of.

Phillips 66 is a gold-level sponsor of the college’s Rockwell Career Center. With this recent site visit and other efforts made, it has established Bauer as one of the company’s target recruitment schools, RCC Graduate Career Services Associate Director Erin Reed said.

The trip was sponsored thanks to efforts made by Bauer alumnus and Phillips 66 Enterprise Planning Consultant Pace Murphy (MBA ‘23). Murphy started off as an intern at the company when he was a student at Bauer, then after graduation he took on a full-time position. Since then, he has been an advocate for hiring more Bauer students, Reed said.

“I’ve been glad to continue supporting that connection since joining the company full-time,” Murphy said.

The site-visit was not only a learning opportunity for the students, who had the chance to ask questions and learn first-hand what the company culture was like, but also a way to showcase Bauer students and give them valuable exposure to potential employers.

“Our students have been known to have a lot of grit,” Reed said. “They’re also down to earth and are known to be hard workers. They’re willing to learn so they don’t come into the companies with an air that they know everything already.”

Professional MBA candidate Rida Shah said she found a lot of value in the Phillips 66 site visit. Although most of the tour covered positions in finance, she said, the recruiters still answered all the questions she had on supply chain management — her preferred field.

She added that she hopes to finish her Professional MBA with a job at one of the larger energy companies like Phillips 66, Exxon or Chevron. Shah will be finishing her second semester this fall, and she said that in the year she has been at Bauer, it has been extremely beneficial to have a dedicated career services team on her side.

“I've built a lot of connections with companies like Exxon thanks to (RCC’s) support,” Shah said. “They’ve taught me how to network and have kept me informed of everything that goes on around campus. I wouldn’t know of a lot of these career events if it wasn’t for RCC.”