During these troubled times every day when I go to work it seems our flag is at half-staff. On this day, my heart was at half-staff as I learned that Phil Burguieres died June 30. He was a very special businessman; he was a very special man. Burguieres had two careers that led him to prominence in Houston. For years he was CEO of several energy companies including Weatherford International, Panhandle Eastern Corp. and Cameron Iron Works where he became one of the youngest CEOs to lead a Fortune 500 company. It was a job that took a heavy toll as during the 1982-83 oilfield recessions he had to lay off two-thirds of Cameron's 9,000 employees to save the company. After 19 years, Burguieres left Cameron in 1989 when it was sold to Cooper Industries. In 1990 he was named CEO of Panhandle Eastern, a pipeline company in the midst of its own severe financial crisis. Within a year, he left for "health reasons".
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