Edwin Pauley

Edwin Wendell Pauley, Sr. (January 7, 1903 – July 28, 1981) was an American businessman and political leader.

Born in Indianapolis, Indiana to Elbert L. Pauley and the former Ellen Van Petten, he attended Occidental College, in northeast Los Angeles, during 1919–1920 before transferring to the University of California, Berkeley, where he was a member of Phi Kappa Psi fraternity, earning a Bachelor of Science in 1922 and a Master of Science the following year.

Pauley made his fortune running oil companies from the mid-1920s onward. He founded The Petrol Corp. in 1923. Pauley was president of Fortuna Petroleum by 1933. In 1947 he bought Coconut Island in Hawaii, as a private retreat. Several of his deals involved Zapata Corporation, run by George H. W. Bush, including a joint-venture with Pemargo in 1960. In 1958 he founded Pauley Petroleum which, with Howard Hughes, expanded oil production in the Gulf of Mexico.

Later Pauley also became a founding part-owner of television station KTVU in Oakland, a part-owner of the Los Angeles Rams football team and a director of Western Airlines.

Pauley became involved with the Democratic Party as a fundraiser in 1930s, eventually becoming Treasurer of the Democratic National Committee. In 1940, he served as a member of the Interstate Oil and Compact Commission. He was a friend and confidante of U.S. Senator Harry S. Truman, and through Truman's influence, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Pauley as Petroleum Coordinator of Lend-Lease Supplies for the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom in 1941. He was director of the 1944 Democratic National Convention.

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