Customer Reviews

Done in Oil: An Autobiography

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First of all in the interest of full disclosure, my family was in the oil industry from 1934 to 1975, and much of my family's wealth came directly or indirectly from its association with J. Howard Marshall, Jr., the subject of this book. Personally I wish that Howard would have fleshed out many of the personal aspects of his life, specifically his long-term association with Bettye Bohanon, from 1942 to 1961 as her mentor and lover, and her husband thereafter until her death. The reader also has to read between the lines to discover the reason for Howard's fantastic business success (he died at age 89 as a billionaire) -- he possessed great entrepeneurial instincts, but also a knack of hiring the right man for the right job. When he made mistakes, it was always because he had chosen or inherited the wrong man.

Much of what Howard accomplished from 1954 to the end of his life is rushed over lightly. For example, when he created the Great Northern Oil Company in 1954, he brought the entire system on-line in less than a year. In addition to building the Great Northern refinery, he had almost 900 miles of crude oil pipeline to build through Minnesota and Canada under difficult conditions. He chose the right man to build and manage the refinery, and the right man to build and run Minnesota Pipeline (my father). Typically for Howard, he simply stated; "... the pipelines fell into place." I can assure the reader this was not the case. He also mentioned without dating (it was from 1955 to 1961) that, "... weekends were often spent in Minnesota on Great Northern matters." Yep, with Bettye, and often with my parents playing bridge at our house or going out to T&A bars -- unfortunately, a lifetime passion of his.

Some of the book is difficult to follow. One must read carefully to discover that Minnesota Pipeline was acquired from Howard and his Great Northern consortium in 1961 by Pure Oil. Both Bettye and my father were terminated by Pure, Bettye to become Howard's wife, and my father to join Howard at Union Texas Natural Gas. There he built and operated Dixie Pipeline Company, the pipeline that solved Union's problems in marketing its propane. Howard was extremely loyal to his employees and asociates, and they recipocated fully. Unfortunately, Howard skips over Dixie in his book although it was the world's longest LPG pipeline and featured many technological innovations.

Howard belonged to an age of individual moguls in industry, probably never to be repeated. As Howard was fond of saying, much management today suffers from "paralysis by analysis." Certainly our government does. He repeatedly took risks with hundreds of millions of dollars of his own money, where the failure of any one such venture would have forced him into bankruptcy. As he always said to me, "Be an oil man, not a numbers man." For that reason alone, this book is important. Several times he amalgamated various entities into consortiums to build businesses, the others being corporations while he was at risk as an individual. In today's risk-averting society of social safety nets, his actions become almost incomprehensible.

As a vignette to explain Howard's connections and behind-the-scenes power, allow me to offer one story. In 1961 my father phoned my mother from Houston that Howard and Bettye were getting married & she needed to come right away. She was to go to the Delta ticket counter at the Atlanta airport where a ticket would be waiting for a flight leaving in about an hour. My mother rushed to the airport, but then discovered there was no ticket. She told the ticket agent it was very important for her to get to Houston for Howard Marshall's wedding. The agent called upstairs and was told, "Put her on the plane, Gilmore says it's OK." My mother ran to the plane (it was past departure time) and found it still at the gate. My mother breathlessly told the stewardess at the top of the stairs that she was lucky the plane hadn't left. The stewardess said they were waiting for a VIP and asked to see her ticket. When my mother said she didn't have one, the stewardess asked for her name. My mother answered, and the stewardess said, "Oh, you're the VIP!" She showed my mother to her 1st class seat and the plane took off. Of course, there never was a ticket and never would be. Try doing that today.

Although this book describes how capitalism really works -- something unknown to our Federal bureaucrats who only think they have some knowledge of a culture they themselves avoid like the plague -- it also accurately depicts Federal stupidity in attempting to regulate and manage what the bureaucrats, often "snot-nosed liberal kids" from Ivy League schools (Marshall was formerly one of those), can never understand. One truly needs to guarantee a loan personally wherein if the project doesn't work one is broke to understand capitalism. That situation was common for Marshall, and he functioned by depending on himself and his own skills rather than some government safety net. For him, government was always more or less the enemy -- something to be dealt with, but always to be kept at arm's length whenever possible. In this context, this would be a valuable book for students in MBA programs to read and discuss. In fact, it would be valuable for our national politicians to read, but unfortunately we can't get them to even read the bills they vote for.

In conclusion, there is much of value here for a researcher in the history of the oil industry in the US and for entrepreneurs. Bill Maher may make fun of Howard on his TV show, but Maher is not fit to bring Howard a glass of water. Maher should read this book -- if he can read. I only wish there would have been more on a personal level. Howard is best known today (and probably for all time) for his marriage while senile to Anna Nicol Smith -- a sad legacy for a captain of American Industry.