Photos Courtesy of ExxonMobil Public Affairs
alumni spotlight DECIE AUTIN ’80
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early 9,000 miles away in Papua New Guinea, Decie Autin, ChE ’80, serves as a project executive for the ExxonMobil Development Company. She is leading a 22,000-person project management team to design and construct a $19 billion dollar project to commercialize natural gas from the Highlands of Papua New Guinea into liquefied natural gas. During her 33-
year career, Autin has traveled the world, living everywhere from New Orleans and Houston to Nigeria and Australia. However, chemical engineering wasn’t always on Autin’s career path. With an interest in biology, a captivation with building “The Six Million Dollar Man,” and a stomach too weak for medical school, Autin enrolled as a biomedical engineering student at the University of Louisville, where her father taught as a professor. When her father, Dr. Robert Burnett, became president of Armstrong Atlantic State University, her family moved to Savannah, and Autin transferred to Georgia Tech and enrolled as a chemical engineering major. While she says her physical chemistry class led to many sleepless nights, Autin’s experience in chemical engineering was positive, leading her to a successful career with ExxonMobil. “In chemical engineering, I was a member of the largest class in the nation at the time,” Autin says. “Because of this, I not only learned to be an engineer, but I was taught to compete, and at ExxonMobil, that has been very valuable. I’ve always appreciated not only the academic aspect of Georgia Tech, but that it also taught me to be competitive.” Upon graduation, Autin began working for Exxon in New Orleans. Yet even halfway across the U.S., her ties to chemical engineering and Georgia Tech remained strong. “I benefited from being an active,
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young alumna because I had connections with people, both from the School and in my company,” she says. “Knowing people at work who went to Georgia Tech gave me a common place to strike up a relationship or discussion.” Because of Autin’s strong connection to her educational background and the successes she experienced, she started the Dr. Robert Burnett Scholarship in memory of her father, who passed away in 2004. “Education is very important to me, as my father was a professor of history and president of Armstrong Atlantic State University,” she says. “He was my mentor and role model growing up, and it makes me proud to honor his name.” As an active alumna who often represents ExxonMobil in recruitment events on campus, Autin traveled to Georgia Tech in March 2013 to present a check for more than $400,000 to her alma mater on behalf of ExxonMobil, an experience that Autin says made her very proud. Today in her free time, Autin enjoys visiting her two grown children and bird watching with her husband. “It’s great because you can do it anywhere,” she notes. And, each year, she makes time for a girls’ weekend with five of her closest friends, who all happen to be ChE ’80 graduates. “They have been great supporters and comrades as we have journeyed through life together,” she says. “Fortunately, all six of us made it through physical chemistry class.”
SCHOOL OF CHEMICAL & BIOMOLECULAR ENGINEERING, GEORGIA TECH