International oilman and Old Elizabethan Jason Breslaw is continuing to forge his business reputation after moving to Chicago.
Former School Captain Jason (OE 1994–2001), who now leads BP’s distillate trading origination business across the Americas, was a headline attraction at a major industry event in October – the 37th Argus Fuel Oil and Feedstock Summit – in Miami, Florida. Oil pricing analyst Stefka Wechsler identified him as one of the event’s “high-powered speakers”.
A year after graduating from Cambridge with a degree in Natural Sciences in 2004, Jason began working for BP as a Freight Trading Analyst and has successfully worked his way up in the multinational company ever since. For the first 12 years, he was based in London, although his responsibilities ranged far and wide, from involvement with BP’s terminal in the southern Turkish port of Mersin to leading the development of new distillate trading business across Europe, Africa and Russia.
Jason got married in Mill Hill in July 2015 and he and his spouse moved to the US in May 2016. As to the future, he hopes to start a family when he returns from Chicago. “I intend to keep working at my career within BP and to continue travelling both for business and pleasure. I’ll be prioritising time with my friends and family whenever I get the opportunity, and staying true to my north London roots .
“I have so many fond memories from my days at QE! The dreaded cross-country runs through the ‘elephant dip’, as we used to refer to it (the typically very muddy section behind Third Field, where more than a few Green Flash trainers have no doubt been lost) – I never imagined I’d take up running as a hobby in later life: it’s mainly to keep the extra pounds off that living in America can so easily see gained.
“One of my proudest achievements was breaking the fundraising record for the FQE summer fete when I was School Captain back in 2000, between the raffle ticket sales and the fete itself. Boy, we worked hard for that, but of course none of us as hard as Diane Mason [Friends of Queen Elizabeth’s stalwart] – what a trooper!
“It was also a pleasure seeing the School evolve, from having some first-year classes in Portakabins (to the right of where the Sixth Form block now stands), to the addition of the new Science labs in the late 1990s, to the building of the Sixth Form block and the covering of the area between the English classrooms (what was the rose garden) – and since then of course, the upgrading of the pool and many more upgrades. The BBC computers from 1994/5 are well and truly gone!”
Jason was joint best man at Arash Aframian’s (also OE 1994-2001) wedding this summer. “Arash was, and remains, one of my closest friends and is now a successful orthopaedic surgeon in the UK.”
Another friend from School, Gavin Levy, re-entered Jason’s life when he bought the house next door to him in Mill Hill. “It was great re-kindling that friendship and getting to know his wife before we moved to the US.”
Pictured here is Jason:
-
- In Kuwait City at a refinery deep dive with the country’s national oil company.
-
- In Sydney attending ABCANZ (a military fuels conference between the American, British, Canadian, Australian and New Zealander navies) at the request of the UK MOD, where he represented the industry as a marine fuels quality and market expert.
-
- In a recent picture taken at his downtown Chicago apartment balcony, as used in the Miami conference marketing materials.