PETROLEUM DIRECTORY: STEELFAB consultant receives outstanding older worker award

Anyone who thinks they’re getting too old to work might want to check in with STEELFAB consultant Vince Doran. At the age of 88 Doran still puts in 20 to 30 hours as a consultant for steel fabricator and service center STEELFAB in Anchorage.

On July 28 various dignitaries from the State of Alaska presented Doran with the 2005 Outstanding Older Worker award to celebrate the contributions that older workers bring to the American workforce. The award is part of a national program run by Experience Works, an organization that encourages and trains mature workers.

As part of the award Doran will travel to Washington, D.C., in September for a ceremony in which the nation’s leaders will honor all 50 state award winners. The ceremony will form part of the Employ Older Workers Week.

Doran sees a lifelong desire to work hard and with integrity as a key to success.

“I’m a child of the Great Depression,” he said. “Jobs were scarce: Anyone who had a job worked long and hard and didn’t complain, and that has been my whole life.”