2026 Labor Relations/Human Resources Conference

Keynote remarks from AFPM President and CEO, Chet Thompson, addressing today’s geopolitical uncertainty, policy shifts, and election-year dynamics shaping the challenges facing the petrochemical and refining industries. With energy security, affordability, and national competitiveness front and center, Chet will offer perspective on how global events and recent policy developments are influencing industry decision-making, and what to expect as the midterm elections approach. 

Following his remarks, Chet will sit down with AFPM’s LRHR Committee Chair, Matt Yarborough of Chevron Services Company, for a candid fireside chat exploring leadership, workforce priorities, and the path forward for our industries. .
 

This interactive training reveals the powerful role empathy plays in transforming workplace culture. Participants explore the two core forms of empathy—cognitive (understanding others’ perspectives) and emotional (feeling what others feel)—through engaging discussions, real-life scenarios, and science-based assessments that measure their personal empathy levels. 

Framed as an innate superpower we all possess, this session shows how empathy enhances leadership, fosters deeper employee connections, and mitigates biases. By making the invisible visible, this training empowers participants to identify blind spots, improve communication, and build trust across the differences that divide organizations. Rooted in the belief that empathy is not a weakness but a form of wisdom, this experience inspires change from the inside out.
 

New technologies are reshaping how organizations manage work and access people data. As the environment evolves, a new question emerges: What does a fully empowered HR business partner look like?

This session highlights the core capabilities modern HRBPs must bring—strategic partnering, business knowledge, organizational design, talent insight, economic thinking, and challenging mindsets. It also explores how shifting transactional work to digital platforms creates the space for this evolution. Through Koch's journey, this session will show you how technology can enable supervisors, streamline decision-making, and create the bandwidth HR needs to operate as empowered, influential business partners.

Join AFPM’s Adrienne Ursino Brocca for a dedicated session highlighting EMPOWER, a program designed to equip employees across the refining, petrochemical, and midstream industries with the resources, training, and information they need to tell our industry’s story effectively. EMPOWER helps employees better understand the issues shaping our industry and provides clear, accessible tools to engage in informed conversations at work, in their communities and beyond.

This session will explore how an educated workforce strengthens our industry by:

• Building confidence and understanding around complex industry issues
• Providing easy-to-use resources, fact sheets, and training materials
• Empowering employees to be knowledgeable ambassadors for the work they do

Whether you’re responsible for communications, workforce engagement or leadership development, this session will offer valuable insight into how EMPOWER can support your teams and reinforce the critical role of education in protecting and advancing our industry.

An overview of the Boeing Defense Systems negotiations and strike, highlighting key lessons learned and examining how internal and external factors shaped the process and outcomes.

Phil Brzozowski, Marathon’s Vice President, HR, Labor & Employee Relations, is the lead negotiator in pattern bargaining with the United Steelworkers. Phil has more than 15 years of experience spanning arbitration, collective bargaining, litigation, industrial and labor relations, human resources, benefits administration and labor and employment law. His strategic leadership and deep expertise shape the high stakes negotiations with the United Steelworkers on behalf of our industry.

Join Phil for a powerful, insight driven session that goes beyond a standard negotiation recap. Drawing on his recent experience from the 2025–2026 bargaining cycle and the newly secured four-year national pattern agreement, Phil will break down the pivotal moments, strategic inflection points and behind the scenes dynamics that shaped the final outcomes. He’ll offer a rare, practitioner level look at how to balance risk, timing, leverage and workforce realities across large operations.

LRHR Committee transition announcements and close of conference.