John Wesley Van Dyke

John Wesley Van Dyke (1849-1939) was president of the Atlantic Refining Company, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from 1911 until 1927. After the break-up of Standard Oil Trust, Van Dyke led the debt-ridden Atlantic Refining Company into expanded markets and sales of more than $131 million. [Leadership: 20th Century Great American Business Leaders]

The Early Years

Born in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, in 1867, young John Van Dyke, (age seventeen), ran away from home to find a job in the western Pennsylvania oil fields. By the age of 21, he was a driller, tool dresser, and small producer, having purchased two oil leases in Venango County, Pennsylvania. Van Dyke was hired as an engineer by Standard Oil’s Long Island Refinery in the mid-1870s. In 1879, Standard Oil purchased the Sone & Fleming Refinery in Brooklyn, New York and Van Dyke was made plant manager.

Time With Standard Oil Trust

John Van Dyke was sent to Lima, Ohio in 1886 to manage the newly formed Solar Refinery. Charged with finding a way to remove the sulfur from Ohio’s crude oil, John D. Rockefeller teamed Van Dyke with German chemist, Herman Frasch. Frasch successfully devised the necessary chemistry while Van Dyke invented a hollow water-cooled drive shaft for the furnace employed in the recovery of the copper oxide that was necessary to remove the sulfur from the crude oil.

Standard Oil transferred John Van Dyke to its Point Breeze Refinery in Philadelphia in 1903. Working together with William Irish, the two men developed the technology for the “tower still,” which offered greater control over condensation during refining. This technique was considered the industry’s first complete distillation process, saving millions of dollars annually in refining costs.

Time With Atlantic Refining

When the Sherman Antitrust Act broke up Standard Oil Trust in 1911, John Van Dyke became president of the Atlantic Refining Company. Without the huge integrated operation of the former parent company, Atlantic Refining faced many challenges. The company owned three refinieries in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Franklin, Pennsylvania. Its domestic markets were confined to the states of Delaware and Pennsylvania. The company did not own or lease any oil wells, pipe lines, or oil tankers, and though sixty per cent of its business was foreign, it had no foreign sales force; it was several million dollars in debt to its former associates.

Van Dyke developed a business plan to expand Atlantic's domestic and foreign markets, but domestic sales came to a halt when the U.S. entered World War I in April 1917. Prior to U.S. involvement in the war, gasoline exports increased to the Allied Forces. As air forces emerged, the demand for aviation grade gasoline grew, and during the time of the U.S. involvement in World War I, fifty percent of the aviation fuel sent abroad was produced at Atlantic's Point Breeze Refinery.

After the war, Van Dyke returned to his business plan for expansion. In response to changes in the source areas of crude oil, he focused on building up the fleet of oil tanker ships owned by the company. A second strategy was to produce oil, rather than rely on purchased crude. By the mid-1930s, Atlantic was producing oil in Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico from more than 1,000 domestic oil wells. [Wilner, Charles F., "“J. W. Van Dyke: The Story of a Man and an Industry; 1870– 1936,” (Compiled and Printed by the Bingham Company, Philadelphia, PA), ca.1936.]

Atlantic's expansion of foreign markets began with the opening of the company's first foreign office in Paris in the spring of 1919. Six months later, a branch was opened in Italy. In 1923, the company entered the South African market, and by the following year had offices in all of Western Europe, on the north, west and south coasts of Africa, and in South America. In 1926, in partnership with Union Oil Company of California, the company began business in Australia.

Van Dyke's Legacy

John Van Dyke retired as president of the Atlantic Refining Company in 1927, at which time he became chairman of the board. Prior to the Great Depression, a boom period occurred and Van Dyke took an unpopular stance in restraining Atlantic's growth. Although employee hours were cut, wages were maintained, and the company met all of its obligations, and continued its dividends.

On November 20, 1937, an 18,500 ton, welded oil tanker, (the first American-built turbo-electric tanker), was launched at Chester, Pennsylvania, bearing the name of “J.W. Van Dyke.” [The Allen County Reporter, "John and Edna," Vol. LX, No. 1, 2005]

Van Dyke's Legacy

John Van Dyke retired as president of the Atlantic Refining Company in 1927, at which time he became chairman of the board. Prior to the Great Depression, a boom period occurred and Van Dyke took an unpopular stance in restraining Atlantic's growth. Although employee hours were cut, wages were maintained, and the company met all of its obligations, and continued its dividends.

On November 20, 1937, an 18,500 ton, welded oil tanker, (the first American-built turbo-electric tanker), was launched at Chester, Pennsylvania, bearing the name of “J.W. Van Dyke.” [The Allen County Reporter, "John and Edna," Vol. LX, No. 1, 2005]

Having returned to Philadelphia in poor health from a trip to Brazil, Van Dyke died at the age of 89, in September of 1939. [Personal Correspondence of Elizabeth M. MacDonell, Collections of the Allen County Historical Society Van Dyke's will created an educational endowment fund for the children of the Atlantic's employees in the amount of $1.5 million. [“$1,500,000 Left to Aid Children,” Philadelphia Record, 17 September 1939.]

In 1966, Atlantic Refining merged with the Richfield Oil Company of California creating the Atlantic Richfield Company, (ARCO).

References

1. "John W. Van Dyke," online at: Leadership; 20th Century Great American Business Leaders; available at http://www.hbs.edu/leadership/database/leaders/914/

2. Wilner, Charles F., “J. W. Van Dyke: The Story of a Man and an Industry; 1870– 1936,” (Compiled and Printed by the Bingham Company, Philadelphia, PA), ca.1936, p.7.

3. Wilner, p.7.

4. "John & Edna," "The Allen County Reporter," a publication of the Allen County Historical Society, 620 W. Market St., Lima, OH, Vol. LX, No. 1, 2005

5. Personal correspondence of Elizabeth M. MacDonell and John W. Van Dyke, "Collections of the Allen County Historical Society", 620 W. Market St., Lima, OH, 45801.

External links

"Whatever Happened to Standard Oil?" available online from http://www.us-highways.com/sohist.htm]