Robert Orville Anderson
| Robert Orville Anderson | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
April 12, 1917 Chicago, Illinois |
| Died | December 2, 2007 (aged 90) Roswell, New Mexico |
| Parent(s) | Hugo A. Anderson Hilda Nelson |
Robert Orville Anderson (April 13, 1917 – December 2, 2007) was an American businessman and philanthropist who founded Atlantic Richfield Oil Co. (since 2000 part of BP) through the 1966 merger of the Atlantic and Richfield oil companies and was Arco's chairman for two decades. Anderson used his clout to support an array of major cultural organizations, from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to Harper's Magazine. He died December 2, 2007 at his home in Roswell, New Mexico.
Anderson turned Arco into the United States' sixth-largest oil company by the time he left in 1986 to pursue other interests. He was by then the largest individual landowner in the United States, with ranches and other holdings in Texas and New Mexico amounting to some 2,000 square miles (5,200 km2) and a personal fortune estimated at $200 million.
Robert Orville Anderson was born in Chicago on April 13, 1917, to the Swedish immigrants Hugo A. Anderson and Hilda Nelson. His father was a prominent banker who, Anderson often said, was the first banker in the U.S. "who loaned money on oil in the ground."
Robert attended elementary and high school at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, and then continued his studies at the University of Chicago, majoring in economics and graduating in 1939. Anderson was an intellectual and considered becoming a philosophy professor. He was a member of the Omega chapter of the Psi Upsilon Fraternity. During summers, he worked on pipelines in Texas. After graduating, he worked for the American Mineral Spirits Company, a subsidiary of Pure Oil. In 1941, his father helped him and his brothers buy a refinery in New Mexico.
By 1950 Anderson owned several refineries, had built a pipeline system and had become a wildcatter. He entered the top ranks of independent oil producers in 1957 with a major find at the Empire-Abo field in New Mexico.
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