1. Employee Profile -- Alina Zimmerman
13-Jun-2012
By Erin Hallissy
Alina Zimmerman did not
know a lot about computers
beyond how to use them for
school and fun until she
started working as an OE
student in the IT department
in January 2011.
Since then, she has become
proficient at not just working
on a computer, but wiping
them clean, installing parts,
solving technical problems
with them and more.
“Before I started at Shell, I knew how to use Microsoft Excel, the basic office stuff, and I
knew little things like what a USB was,” she said recently. “I’ve learned the inside of the
computer.”
Recently Zimmerman used that knowledge on a project assigned by her supervisor, Mark
Thomson – the PC donation program in which used Shell Martinez computers are made
available to local schools.
“After a lapse of several years, we have restarted our PC donation program with 10 PCs
going to St. Catherine’s school to aid in research at the school library,” Thomson said. “This
donation can be used by all students at St. Catherine’s so this is a very effective way to
impact many students with Shell’s donation. Alina worked with the HP personnel on site to
develop a repeatable process to prepare PCs for donation. This not only made the work for
St. Catherine’s more productive, but also allows future donations to be more easily
prepared."
Over a period of a couple of weeks, Zimmerman took 15 computers, monitors, keyboards
and mice that were previously used by Shell workers and performed a disk wipe. (Ten were
donated to St. Catherine's, and the others will be donated in the ongoing donation
program). She installed Windows XP and made sure they were all working properly, which
wasn't always easy.
“It was actually a really aggravating process because some of them just would not install. I
had a setup of four computers going at one time, and came across many technical problems
with ‘Yellow Bangs’ being the greatest.”
To fix these technical issues, Robert Aue (HP Delivery Manager) helped her out by supplying
a solution disk to fix “yellow bangs” (“Yellow Bangs” show up as a yellow question mark in

2. the properties area, indicating what processes aren’t working). In Zimmerman's case, it was
the sound, and Aue gave her disks that fixed the problem.
“It helped the process go a lot faster,” she said.
Zimmerman said the project was gratifying. "I feel great knowing that I helped someone
else."
Thomson praises her work, not just on the PC donation project but overall.
“Alina is a cheerful, friendly coworker,” Thomson said. “She is someone who can be relied
on to do what she says. When Alina started with Shell and the IT department, she didn’t
have much knowledge about PCs. She is now quite good at all things relating to PCs.”
Zimmerman, 18, is one of six OE students currently working at the Shell Martinez Refinery.
She just graduated from Alhambra High School and plans to go to Diablo Valley College in
the fall. She wants to eventually major in psychology and hopes to be a psychiatrist, but
added with a smile, “Those are my plans, for now, because I always change them.”
Zimmerman didn’t know anything about Shell’s OE program until she heard an
announcement at Alhambra about it. She intends to continue her OE job as long as she can,
saying it offers her a lot more opportunity to develop herself than a job selling fast food or
ice cream.
“I love it here,” she said. “It was like a miracle getting this job. This job has really helped
me out in becoming a thriving and dedicated student worker, and continues to helped me
grow. It helped me really value the importance of respect and how I present myself.”
Zimmerman said she’s been able to meet a lot of people because she’s been working with
other IT people to deliver new computers to people as part of a refresh program around the
plant.
“It’s helped me get to know the insides and outs of the refinery, as opposed to being just a
giant glob of pipes,” she said. “My first experience driving in a refinery, it was like, whoa,
this is weird.”
Zimmerman said she would recommend the program to others, including her younger
brother, who is now 13, and added that the job is viewed as desirable by high school and
young college students.
“My friends love it. They said ‘I wish I could work there,’ ” she said.