Paul G. Blazer

Paul G. Blazer
Blazer testifies before the House Judiciary Committee on June 23, 1939
Born	Paul Garrett Blazer September 19, 1890 New Boston, Illinois, United States
Died	December 9, 1966 (age 76) Scottsdale, Arizona, United States
Resting place	Ashland Cemetery, Ashland, Kentucky, United States
Nationality	American
Occupation	President and CEO of Ashland Inc.
Years active	1924–1957
Employer	Ashland, Inc., Ashland Oil and Refining Company, Inc, Swiss Oil Company
Known for	Founder (1924), President (1936–1944), & CEO (1944–1957) of Ashland Oil and Refining Company, Inc. / Ashland, Inc.; strong supporter of education, namesake of Paul G. Blazer High School
Spouse(s)	Georgia Monroe (April 1917)(1895–1991)
Children	Paul Garrett, Jr. Blazer (1919–1997) Doris Virginia Webb (1923- ) Stuart Monroe Blazer (1927–1952, died in Korean War)
Parent(s)	David N. and Mary Melinda Blazer
Relatives	Rexford S. Blazer (nephew)(1907–1974)

Paul Garrett Blazer (September 19, 1890 – December 9, 1966) was President and CEO of Ashland Oil and Refining Company (Ashland, Inc.) located in Ashland, Kentucky.

Paul G. Blazer was born on September 19, 1890, in the small Mississippi River town of New Boston, Illinois to Presbyterians (David Newton) D.N. Blazer and Mary Melinda Blazer (née Janes). Blazer's father's childhood home was station number three on the Underground Railroad that began at Quincy Illinois and was described as being on "the avenue to freedom in Canada for runaway slaves from Missouri and Kentucky and hundreds of them passing through to freedom were harbored at the Blazer home." Blazer's father, his father's brother and father's sister were school teachers. His father left the teaching profession as a school principal and soon thereafter became the publisher of the nearby Aledo Times-Record regional newspaper.

At the age of twelve, Blazer began selling magazine subscriptions for The Saturday Evening Post and Ladies Home Journal, and his business was so successful that he eventually hired a full-time adult secretary. Blazer was a star on his high school football team and a track star in high school and in college. After high school, he enrolled at William & Vashti College in Aledo, Illinois, a school his family helped found. After one year of college, Blazer joined the Educational Division of Curtis Publishing Company in Philadelphia as manager of all its school subscriptions. His responsibilities included devising advertisements that ran in the Saturday Evening Post to attract recruits to sell subscriptions.

While in Philadelphia, Blazer became very active in the progressive Bull Moose Party and former President Theodore Roosevelt's unsuccessful campaign for the 1912 republican nomination for President (vs. the more conservative, incumbent Taft). Blazer ended up on the platform with President Roosevelt for his April 10 whistle-stop train tour stop in Philadelphia. Roosevelt overwhelmingly won Pennsylvania delegates with the campaign theme of improved treatment of employees by their corporate owners but he lost the nomination at the June, 1912 Republican National Convention in Chicago to William Howard Taft. Blazer left Curtis Publishing and Philadelphia in 1914 and returned to his magazine business in Illinois. On a Curtis Publishing scholarship, he enrolled at the University of Chicago earning an associate degree in Philosophy in 1915. The scholarship was conditional on maintaining four hundred magazine subscriptions. Blazer further expanded his subscription business with the 1914 purchase from a Curtis distributor in Chicago a renewal subscriptions business with 960 customers and another renewal subscription business in 1916 with 1900 customers further expanding his magazine business in Chicago and into Milwaukee. While attending University of Chicago, Blazer was the student coordinator for the student sports program and business manager of the Cap & Gown yearbook staff. Under his direction they achieved record income.