In the sensitive hours after last weekend's oil spill, the face and voice of Chevron was hardly a corporate villain -- neither an empty suit from Houston nor an insurance company middleman.

Instead, soft-spoken Mark Sullivan -- a transplant from Berkeley and a big fan of ballet -- tiptoed onto the scene and shattered stereotypes.

The 49-year-old Yalecrest resident, who lives across the street from scarred Red Butte Creek, took the spill personally. After all, the Chevron refinery manager with the artsy glasses has spent a career honing the company's safety standards. He is a fly fisher, skier and hiker. And he has volunteered around the world on Chevron's emergency-response team, including a three-year stint in Kazakhstan.

J.R. Ewing, he ain't.

"My dad is Mr. Safety," says daughter Katy, a biology major at Providence College, where she is studying to be a veterinarian. "We were out on the porch for the Fourth of July, and he made us wear safety glasses."

On June 12, Katy paused from her unpaid internship at Hogle Zoo to text her dad that his company had blackened flocks of geese that she and her co-workers were getting ready to shampoo.

"He said, 'What do we need at the zoo? Do we need lights? More suits?' My dad kept saying money is not an issue," she remembers. "My dad's been in oil since, forever, so I see both sides of the story. But I never thought that our two worlds would come together."

Worlds, and some conventions, have seemingly collided during Sullivan's entire life. He married a "liberal artist" from New York who tolerates Chevron despite her oil-averse progressive politics.

Before retiring, Sullivan's father ascended to Chevron vice chairman -- the oil giant's No. 2 man -- and moved the family from California's Bay Area to Belgium, New Jersey and the Gulf Coast. Instead of hardening to the rigors of transitory life , son Mark fell in love with the diversity of different places. (In his own 25-year Chevron career, he has focused on protecting natural habitat rather than spoiling it.)

"It's something that I've always seen a lot of value in, because there are always unforeseen things that happen," Sullivan says. "Every place I've gone, I've always been able to find the beauty in the place and its people."

And Salt Lake City, even though he has lived here only a year, may be his favorite. Sullivan gushes over the Utah capital's openness and volunteerism-- and people's affinity for taking care of one another. He also is impressed by the city's diversity and arts scene, saying it reminds him a bit of Berkeley.

"But the scenery and the outdoors," he pauses. "I don't know that there's another place in the world that has such a variety of the streams, the mountains and the desert."

Marianne Sullivan, who shrugs over marrying into the "biker, hiker family," says most Chevron employees fish, ski and flock to the canyons.

"They're outdoorsy kinds of people," she says, "so of course they care."

After the spill, Marianne notes, the spouses of Chevron workers joined the employees in trekking the Yale-crest neighborhood to address residents' concerns.

"It's just the way they roll," she smiles. "Safety is the culture of the company."

Sullivan hopes to spend summer days fishing the Provo River, but the slippery creek bed makes him nervous he will aggravate an old back injury. He recalls stepping into a muskrat hole in Mississippi and nearly being pulled under after his waders filled with water.

So, lately, Sullivan has stuck to the safety of charity work. His refinery steers big bucks toward art, education and community-service programs. And Chevron recently donated to food banks and an Antelope Island conservation effort.

Sullivan also has taken strides to meet Utah's power brokers -- from the governor and congressional delegation to Mayor Ralph Becker and his neighbor, City Councilman J.T. Martin. Meeting in calm conditions such as a golf course, he says, helps build bonds.

"So when we get together in a stressful situation, we know each other already," he says. "That made all the difference in this."

Marianne says her husband remains calm in a crisis, but she now is waiting for him to crash. "If he has to sleep for three weeks after this, it's OK."

Within 30 days, Chevron has pledged another town-hall meeting to update the community on the cleanup. "I will be there," says Sullivan, moments after kissing his wife and daughter -- both nicknamed "Boo" -- goodbye at the zoo.

After all, this is his town, too.