I really don’t care much about riches, but I do care about achievement. That’s all that matters.”
– J. Howard Marshall, II

J. Howard Marshall was born on January 24, 1905 in Germantown, PA. He led an extraordinary life that spanned more than nine decades.

His career brought him success as a professor, government official, attorney and businessman. His career spanned almost the entire history of the oil industry, from the early years when uncontrolled production depleted valuable fields and natural gas was burned at the well head, to the decades of energy shortages and the Arab Oil Embargo.

Marshall attended George School, a private Quaker high school in Newtown, Pennsylvania, and then studied liberal arts at Haverford College, also a Quaker institution, graduating in 1926. While at George School and Haverford he edited the school newspapers, captained the debate teams and played soccer and tennis under the instruction of professional Bill Tilden.

Marshall then worked his way through Yale Law School, graduating Magna Cum Laude in 1931.  At Yale, he was case editor of the Yale Law Journal and studied with the law and economics pioneer Walton Hale Hamilton. He was invited to join the Yale faculty and served as assistant dean at Yale Law School. At the same time, he was producing scholarship as a member of the influential legal realist school of thought, working with future Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas on an article entitled A Factual Study of Bankruptcy Administration and Some Suggestions. His interest in the oil industry came from a study, done with Norman Meyers, of laws designed to regulate the ruinous practice of controlled production that threatened the industry and chronicled in two articles entitled Legal Planning of Petroleum Production. Lack of regulation was creating a boom-bust cycle in the industry and robbing the country of precious natural resources by the premature depletion of oil and gas fields.

Marshall’s pioneering study of oil industry regulation led to an early end to his promising academic career. Marshall was recruited away from Yale in 1933, to become the Assistant Solicitor at the Department of Interior under Harold L. Ickes, in Washington DC. During his first tour at Interior, he authored the Connally Hot Oil Act of 1935 in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA). Specifically, it revived the portion of the original legislation that regulated the flow of oil between states. Ostensibly enacted to protect the industry from “contraband oil” in order to stabilize falling prices.

In 1935, he moved to San Francisco as special counsel to the president of Standard Oil of California (now Chevron). Two years later, he became a partner with Standard’s chief outside counsel, at that time, Pillsbury, Madison and Sutro.

With World War II looming, Harold Ickes called him back to Washington in 1941 as Solicitor of the Petroleum Administration for War, helping develop America’s energy policy during the war, and later as a member of the Committee on Reparationswork for the Petroleum Administration for War. 

In 1944, Marshall chose to pursue solely a business career when he joined Ashland Oil and Refining Co. (now Marathon). Later positions included Executive Vice President at Signal Oil & Gas under Sam Mosher, President of Union Texas Petroleum and Executive Vice President of Allied Signal (all now Honeywell, Union Texas Petroleum Holdings was later sold to ARCO and merged into BP),until his semi-retirement in 1969. Marshall remained active in the energy industry through many personal endeavors with Great Northern Oil Company, Koch Industries, Coastal Corp (now El Paso Corporation), Independent Refinery and various exploration syndicates. He eventually formed Marshall Petroleum in 1984 and became a successful independent oil man.

Mr. Marshall was married to Eleanor M. Pierce from 1931-1961. They had two sons, J. Howard Marshall III and E. Pierce Marshall. Mr. Marshall married Bettye Bohannon in 1961. The couple’s 30-year marriage ended with Bettye’s death in 1991. Mr. Marshall was married briefly to Anna Nicole Smith. The couple married in 1994. Mr. Marshall died on August 4, 1995.