Bill Allen (corporate CEO)

Bill Allen (04/06/37) is the former CEO of the Alaska oilfield services company VECO Corporation. VECO was an Alaska-based oil pipeline service and construction company founded by Wayne Veltri (VECO is short for Veltri Co). Bill Allen was born in New Mexico and at the age of 16 left for the oil fields of Alaska to become a welder to help support his family. VECO began as a one truck welding and repair operation that grew to become a major player in the Alaskan and worldwide oil industries' support services business. He built a for-profit prison in Barbados as well. VECO also was a worldwide player in the oil industry, having divisions in many major oil markets, including the Sudan, Russia, Mexico, Venezuela and Syria. VECO had a major impact on the economy of Alaska and employed over 5,000 people worldwide.

On March 24, 1989, the oil tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef, spilling eleven million gallons of crude oil into the waters of Prince William Sound. The Exxon Valdez oil spill was the second largest in United States history, after the BP Gulf of Mexico Deepwater Horizon spill.

Under Allen's guidance, VECO (along with its unionized subsidiary, NORCON) was responsible for large parts of the spill's cleanup, hiring 2,500 workers to clean up the environmental disaster. VECO's quick actions are credited with limiting the devastating environmental impact of the Exxon spill.

Following the spill and cleanup, Allen purchased the Anchorage Times from editor/publisher Robert Atwood. Allen operated the newspaper until shutting it down and selling many of its assets to its rival, the Anchorage Daily News, in 1992. Through an agreement described as "unique," Allen paid for space in the editorial section of the ADN for many years afterward to provide a half-page feature known as The Voice of the Times.

On May 7, 2007 Allen, along with VECO's Vice President for Community & Government Affairs Rick Smith, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Anchorage in the Alaska political corruption probe to charges of extortion, bribery, and conspiracy to impede the Internal Revenue Service. The charges involved bribing Alaska lawmakers to vote in favor of an oil tax law favored by the VECO that was the subject of vigorous debate during the regular and two special sessions of the Alaska Legislature in 2006 Bill Allen's testimony, at the trial of his former friend, Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, helped secure Stevens' conviction, in U.S. District Court on charges of felonious corruption. Bill Allen pleaded guilty and could have faced 9–10 years. Instead, he was sentenced to 3 years in Prison and fined $750,000.00. He was released from a halfway house in New Mexico on November 22, 2011.

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