PALO ALTO, Calif. -- George M. Keller, who as chairman of Standard Oil of California oversaw the giant corporate merger that created Chevron and went on in retirement to become a prolific Bay Area philanthropist, died Friday at his home in Palo Alto, Calif. He was 84.
A Kansas City, Mo., native who grew up in Chicago, Keller came to the Bay Area by "happenstance," his son, Barry Keller, told the San Francisco Chronicle.
It was 1948, and Keller—who as a child had developed a fascination with chemistry—was graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a [image-nocss] degree in chemical engineering. His graduation had been delayed by World War II, during which time Keller served in the U.S. Army Air Force.
Upon graduation, Keller received several job offers, his son said. But he and his new wife, Adelaide, chose Standard Oil and drove to San Francisco.
The family settled in San Mateo, Calif., and Keller began designing refineries. He rose quickly at Standard. Keller became the company 's chairman in 1981 and gained a reputation for an informal style and for making well-informed, but risky decisions, such as a $600 million bid for offshore leases that was rewarded by prodigious oil discoveries.
Surely the riskiest gamble Keller took was Standard 's 1984 bid to take over Gulf Oil Corp. in the face of industry competition and government skepticism. Keller told The Chronicle at the time that his final bid for the company—$80 a share—was a gut decision after a restless night. "It's an enormous poker game, and you can't see how high the other guy's chips are," he said.
The resultant $13.2 billion takeover was, at the time, the largest corporate takeover in history, and the company soon had a new name: Chevron. A decade later, Keller would be awarded the American Petroleum Institute's Gold Medal for Distinguished Achievement, an honor first awarded to Henry Ford.
About Keller, current Chevron Corp. chairman and CEO David J. O 'Reilly said, “George was a true leader and visionary, and he was deeply respected by all those who had the fortune to work with him. His tireless efforts in leading the acquisition of Gulf Oil created the foundation for the Chevron we know today. On behalf of our board of directors and 59,000 employees around the globe, we are truly saddened by his passing.”
Keller is survived by three sons, Bill, of Manhattan, N.Y., the executive editor of the New York Times; Bob of Denver; and Barry; and six grandchildren.
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