Experts on a variety of subjects, including engineering, environmental management and safety, Marathon employees frequently visit the local schools in their communities. During these visits, employees teach students about the petroleum industry and the important functions the company provides to the community. Students often are invited to tour the facility to see operations first hand.
Since 2001, Marathon’s Marine Transportation Department has been a member of the Seaman's Church Institute, actively participating in the "Adopt a Towboat Program". The program is a year-long curriculum provided to Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia schools located along the Ohio River. It is intended to help communities learn more about the billion dollar commercial navigation business. Through the program, students adopt a towboat and its crew, corresponding with them throughout the school year while the students study a variety of topics, such as the maritime industry vocabulary, knot tying and map skills. Off-duty captains and crew members stop by the classrooms to meet the students and to talk about life on the river.
The Marine Transportation Department also has become a partner with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in a program called "Biologist on Board." The program helps create opportunities for biologists and the navigation industry to communicate about mutual interests and connections to the river and to share perspectives and concerns regarding the river and its resources. Understanding other's viewpoints, responsibilities, limitations, and concerns, results in the development of solutions that balance the needs of the navigation industry with a healthy, sustainable river ecosystem.
Marathon's Findlay, Ohio, office participates in The Workforce Development Network, a Findlay Chamber of Commerce initiative that provides a means to communicate workforce needs, expectations and opportunities to business and community leaders. The network concentrates on economic development concepts such as retention of qualified workers, recruitment of workers to the area and the business education of local students.
In conjunction with Marathon’s Responsible Care® community relations efforts, the Texas City, Texas, refinery coordinated a summer work partnership with a local school district. This initiative, first implemented at the refinery in 2002, is a unique approach to fostering relationships with industry and the local school districts. This experience teaches students about refinery operations, environmental standards that are required in a refinery, and job opportunities available in a refinery.
Marathon’s Catlettsburg, Kentucky, refinery sponsors a Science Teachers Workshop (TOYS) for Tri-State area elementary teachers, which trains them how to teach science using toys and everyday household items.