Mickey Reeves, '78

2018 Alumni of the Year recipient for the Leonard C. Nelson College of Engineering and Sciences

Charles A. (Mickey) Reeves was born in Wheeling, West Virginia, the son of the late Charles A. Reeves and Nora Reeves Neff. He grew up in Brooke County and lived in the towns of Wellsburg and Follansbee. He graduated from Brooke High School in 1974.

Reeves knew he wanted to be a chemical engineer from the time he was a junior in high school. One of his high school friends, Jim Cercone, had graduated a year before him and was attending West Virginia Tech in Montgomery. Reeves decided he would do the same, applied to Tech and entered the chemical engineering program. He graduated magna cum laude in 1978 with a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering. 

During his four years at Tech, he was active in the AIChE student chapter, was inducted into Tau Beta Pi and was a resident assistant in Maclin and Coed Halls. Reeves furthered his chemical engineering education at the University of Houston and earned a Master of Chemical Engineering in 1986.

After graduation, he entered the world of petroleum refining with his first job as a process engineer at Sohio’s Toledo, Ohio refinery. After four years, Texas called, and he joined a small independent refiner, Texas City Refining in Texas City, Texas. Through a buy-out he joined Phibro Energy and held positions in engineering, planning and economics, operations management, and health, safety and environmental at Phibro’s Texas City and Houston refineries. 

In 1995, Reeves made a slight career shift and joined a small refining and petrochemical consulting firm, The IPC Company. He started to work internationally, and moved on to Pace Consultants and subsequently Jacobs Engineering. During his 18-year career at Jacobs, he moved from a senior consultant to managing the process engineering department to a Middle East assignment as Vice President – Refining and Petrochemicals. He finished his career at Jacobs as vice president and managing director of Jacobs Consultancy. Most recently, Reeves has been a program director at CH2M. 

Over the years, Reeves has been active in the South Texas Section of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and was Section Chair in 1999. He received the Section’s Distinguished Service Award in 2008. He was also committee chair of his son’s Cub Scout pack and Boy Scout troop in the early 2000s. 

One of his biggest sources of pride is the Tech Golden Bear Alumni Association. In 2010, Tech was re-booting the alumni association, and he volunteered to be on the Board of Directors. He was the new Association’s first president and has been active with the Association ever since.  Most recently, he has been very active in the formation of the Tech Golden Bear Alumni Association Scholarship Fund.

Reeves and his wife Agnes reside in Houston, Texas, and they are frequent visitors to the Tech campus.