"I remember that night like it was yesterday," Warren said the first time he saw Marie Sevier more than 70 years ago. "While I was home from college visiting my parents, I went to a dance at my old high school in Overland, Missouri. A conga line formed and this beautiful young gal came dancing by. I tagged the boy behind her, and I got Marie as a dancing partner. She was Sweet Sixteen."
Their first real date wasn't for another three years—Valentine's Day, 1943. "That should have been a clue right there, shouldn't it?" Marie says. The couple married in 1945. "So many things in life are things of chance that trigger what you do," Warren said. "Our chance event was the conga line. It's what got us together." For the next 68 years, their 'conga line of life' took them around the world.
After getting his master's degree in chemical engineering, thanks to the prestigious DuPont Scholarship and the GI Bill, Warren, a milkman's son, began a lifelong career in the petroleum industry. For fifty years, every grassroots oil refinery and expansion he managed, every deepwater platform project he oversaw for Standard Oil of Indiana, M. W. Kellogg, and ExxonMobil—in dozens of countries, from the U.S to South Africa, France to Saudi Arabia, Norway to New Zealand, Indonesia to Canada—was in the forefront of the petroleum industry. His expertise and experience in building facilities to manufacture synthetic fuel and to convert coal and natural gas to liquid fuels helped make several countries energy independent. Descriptors like "world's first," "crown jewel of the industry," and "modern wonder of the world" were not exaggerations of projects that took thousands of workers years to build, at the cost of billions of dollars.
Marie and their four children accompanied Warren on years-long assignments in the U.S., South Africa, and France; but there were also long periods of separation - lonesome days for everyone. As parents, Warren and Marie never waivered from what they considered their most important job—to provide for and raise a loving family. "I don't think we appreciated what we signed on to when I took that first job. It wasn't always easy, but we survived," Warren said. "We never thought we'd have the adventures we had." Marie agreed. "Warren showed us the world."
In 1987, Warren retired as ExxonMobil's General Manager of Technology, the world's largest international oil and gas company. He and Marie moved to Pinehurst where they began a life of philanthropy. They decided on five organizations to support with gifts of ExxonMobil stock: Habitat for Humanity which Warren helped to establish in Moore County, Sandhills Community College, their church, and The Foundation of FirstHealth and FirstHealth Hospice Foundation.
"The people who are really being helped by Hospice are the family members of those who are dying," Warren said. "Hospice patients receive all the medical attention and assistance they need; but those who have to bear the grief and loss, they are the ones who need Hospice most. With FirstHealth Hospice, families will be taken care of, even when their loved one is gone."
Though no longer with us, Warren and Marie left a legacy of impact on our community through active giving and charitable trust. For more information on planned giving opportunities such as Charitable Trusts through The Foundation of FirstHealth, please call our office at (910) 695-7500.
