About 15 years ago, when it became evident that a great bank of senior personnel in oil and gas production, refining, and petrochemicals would soon be nearing retirement age and exiting the industry, enlightened management initiated actions to forestall the approaching intelligence drain and employee shortage.Some companies quickly developed programs to document and archive all procedures, methods, and specialty knowledge within their companies while their skilled experts were still on board.Some cross-trained existing employees for competency in numerous areas, giving monetary incentives for the number of skills learned and amount of flexibility achieved.Many created scholarships, offere...