ARCS Member Patricia Sparrell grew up in a small town.  

“There were more cows than people in the village and the surrounding area of Homer, New York,” Sparrell says.

She graduated from high school as a strong student in math and science. Since she graduated in the 1970s, she was encouraged to pursue a career as a nurse or a teacher. Sparrell considered being a physical therapist.

At her women’s only college, Russell Sage, her professors encouraged her to follow her skills in math and science.  The professors were right, and Sparrell graduated with a double degree in chemistry and math.  In her mid-twenties, Sparrell earned her master’s degree in chemical engineering at Northwestern University.  She was the only woman to complete her degree among thirty-three graduate candidates.

“As a girl from a small town, I purposefully went looking for a large company that had global reach with the opportunity to travel and the ability to manage dual careers with my husband,” she says.

She was hired by Mobil, later known as ExxonMobil. Her first assignment was in New Jersey, the location of Mobil’s downstream research center.  As a young process research engineer, she applied her experimental and computational skills to develop new technologies.  

 “As a process engineer, I did experiments in the lab, mimicking each process on a smaller scale, to make products (e.g., gasoline, heating oil, diesel) safely, more cheaply, and environmentally compliant,” Sparrell says.

As she progressed through her career, she learned how different parts of the corporation fit together.

“I learned how to work with senior-level managers, as well as operators in the plants, to have an impact,” she says.

She also had the opportunity to travel while testing new technologies and providing technical advice.  Sparrell visited the domestic refineries as well as refineries around the world.

She had assignments in many different parts of the company, challenging her to meet new people, quickly come up to speed, and communicate the value of her organization.  Sparrell says she loved company travel even as a mother with young children at home. She and her husband, Duncan, made long careers at big corporations possible with their meticulous schedule planning that included stability for their children.

She was part of the team for the ExxonMobil merger, which taught her skills at organizational redesign, selecting best practices, and how to blend roles and work with resiliency. Over her 35-year career, she relocated five times, progressed from process research and engineering through multiple business assignments, and retired as a senior executive in the ExxonMobil Research and Engineering organization.   

When Sparrell retired, she had several goals: to get in shape and learn how to cook creatively, stay involved in STEM, and meet more women, as most of her ExxonMobil colleagues were men.  Sparrell’s retirement has led to the acquisition of new skills, including cooking from scratch, and her commitment to science remains evident in her involvement in major volunteer roles – with the ARCS Foundation National, the ARCS Metro Washington Chapter, and as a trustee at Russell Sage College.

Sparrell has served on the Russell Sage College Board of Trustees for 12 years, including a 6-year term as Board Chair during tumultuous times.  The small college located in Albany/Troy has expanded its academic program offerings and recently announced merger plans with Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. 

An ARCS member since 2015, Sparrell has shared her expertise with process, finding solutions, and working within a multi-layered organization.  She has met many women she is proud to call friends in all fifteen chapters.  She has held multiple positions at both the chapter and national levels.  She helped plan an ARCS organization-wide conference in Washington, D.C., which included a memorable dinner at the Supreme Court and the All ARCS Meeting in Chicago, Illinois, last year.

She is currently the Co-Chair of Nominating for ARCS National and Co-President of the Metro Washington Chapter.  She is the mother of three daughters and has been married to Duncan for forty-seven years.