Fred C. Koch

Fred C. Koch was born in Quanah, Texas, the son of Mattie B. (née Mixson) and Harry Koch, a Dutch immigrant.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JEg6AAAAMAAJ&q=Mattie+B.+Mixson+Koch |title=The Mixon-Mixson family, Volume 3 |first=John Leslie |last=Mixson |publisher=American Reference Publishers |year=1975}} Harry had begun working as a printer's apprentice in Workum, Netherlands. He worked over a year at printers' shops, in The Hague and in Germany, before coming to the U.S. in 1888,

{{citation |journal=Discovery |title=Making Headlines |page=7 |url=http://www.kochind.com/files/discovery/DiscoveryApril2009.pdf |publisher=Koch Industries |date=April 2009 |format=Adobe Acrobat (*.PDF) }}

where he bought the Tribune-Chief newspaper.

{{cite book |title=The Science of Success: How Market-Based Management Built the World's Largest Private Company |last=Koch |first=Charles C. |author-link=Charles G. Koch |year=2007 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons, Inc. |isbn=978-0-470-13988-2 |page=[https://archive.org/details/sciencesuccessho00koch/page/n21 6] |url=https://archive.org/details/sciencesuccessho00koch|url-access=limited }}

Fred attended Rice Institute in Houston from 1917 to 1919 and graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1922, where he obtained a degree in chemical engineering practice.{{cite web |url=http://www.fmkfoundation.org/history.asp |title=History |year=2008 |work=fmkfoundation.org |publisher=Fred C. and Mary R. Koch Foundation |access-date=May 1, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131114070358/http://www.fmkfoundation.org/history.asp |archive-date=November 14, 2013 }}

{{cite news |title=Empathy for Others: Alumnus gives $100M to create cancer institute |author=Liz Karagianis |magazine=Spectrum |date=Winter 2008 |publisher=Massachusetts Institute of Technology |quote=His late father, Fred C. Koch, MIT class of '22, founded Koch Industries in 1925, made a fortune, and vowed to teach his four sons to become honorable, honest, and principled. |url=http://spectrum.mit.edu/issue/2008-winter/empathy-for-others/ }}

{{Cite web |title=Fred Chase Koch |url=https://www.newnetherlandinstitute.org/history-and-heritage/dutch_americans/frederick-chase-koch |access-date=2024-03-22 |website=www.newnetherlandinstitute.org}}

Koch started his career with the Texas Company in Port Arthur, Texas, and later became chief engineer with the Medway Oil & Storage Company on the Isle of Grain in Kent, England. In 1925 he joined a fellow MIT classmate, P.C. Keith, at Keith-Winkler Engineering in Wichita, Kansas. Following the departure of Keith in 1925,{{cite book |title=Memorial Tributes: National Academy of Engineering, Volume 2 |year=1984 |publisher=National Academy of Engineering |isbn=0-309-03482-5 |page=148 |doi=10.17226/565 |url=http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=565&page=148 |access-date=May 1, 2010}} the firm became Winkler-Koch Engineering Company.

In 1927, Koch developed a more efficient thermal cracking process for deriving gasoline from crude oil, which allowed smaller players in the industry to better compete with the major oil producers.{{Cite book |last=O'Reilly |first=Kenneth |title=Asphalt: A History |publisher=University of Nebraska Press |year=2021 |isbn=978-1-4962-2638-9 |location=Lincoln |page=205 |language=en}} He invented this technology five years after he graduated from MIT.{{Cite web |last=Sassoon |first=David |date=2012-05-10 |title=Koch Brothers' Political Activism Protects Their 50-Year Stake in Canadian Heavy Oils |url=https://insideclimatenews.org/news/10052012/koch-industries-brothers-tar-sands-bitumen-heavy-oil-flint-pipelines-refinery-alberta-canada/ |access-date=2022-09-02 |website=Inside Climate News |language=en-US}} A consortium of large companies quickly sued in response, filing 44 different lawsuits against Koch, embroiling him in litigation for years. Koch prevailed in all but one suit (which would later be overturned, due to the judge having been bribed).{{cite news|first=Matthew |last=Continetti |author-link=Matthew Continetti |title=The Paranoid Style in Liberal Politics |work=The Weekly Standard |date=April 4, 2011 |url=http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/paranoid-style-liberal-politics_555525.html?nopager=1 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110415091748/https://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/paranoid-style-liberal-politics_555525.html |archive-date=15 April 2011 }}

In 1925, Koch had entered into a partnership with Lewis Winkler, a former employee of Universal Oil Products (which is now UOP LLC). Winkler developed a cracking apparatus for heavy crude oil with, ostensibly, no patented difference in comparison to his former employer's intellectual property; thus, in 1929, UOP sued Winkler-Koch for patent infringement. Also that year, nearly three years before the patent case went to trial, Winkler-Koch signed contracts to build petroleum distillation plants in the Soviet Union, which did not recognize intellectual property rights.{{cite news |agency=Center for Media and Democracy |author-link=Lisa Graves |first=Lisa |last=Graves |title=The Koch Brothers: The Extremist Roots Run Deep |url=http://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/07/12531/koch-brothers-roots-run-deep |access-date=July 25, 2015 |date=July 10, 2014}}

This extended litigation blocked Winkler-Koch from selling the technology in the U.S. for several years. In the words of Jane Mayer, "Unable to succeed at home, Koch found work in the Soviet Union."{{cite magazine |last=Mayer |first=Jane |author-link=Jane Mayer |date=August 23, 2010 |title=Covert Operations: The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama |url=https://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer |url-status=live |magazine=The New Yorker |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100824050031/https://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer |archive-date=August 24, 2010 |access-date=2023-04-16}} Between 1929 and 1932 Winkler-Koch supported the Kremlin and "trained Bolshevik engineers to help Stalin's regime set up fifteen modern oil refineries"{{Attribution needed|date=April 2023}} in the Soviet Union during its first five-year plan.{{cite news |author=Igolkin |first=Alexander |date=1 November 2006 |title=Learning From American Experience |newspaper=Oil of Russia |url=http://www.oilru.com/or/26/466/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130606150926/http://www.oilru.com/or/26/466/ |archive-date=2013-06-06}}{{cite news |last1=Davies |first1=Dave |last2=Mayer |first2=Jane |author-link1=Dave Davies (reporter) |author-link2=Jane Mayer |url=https://www.npr.org/2016/01/19/463565987/hidden-history-of-koch-brothers-traces-their-childhood-and-political-rise |title='Hidden History' Of Koch Brothers Traces Their Childhood And Political Rise |work=NPR |via=Fresh Air |date=January 19, 2016 |access-date=18 November 2020}}{{cite news |last=Dickinson |first=Tim |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/inside-the-koch-brothers-toxic-empire-164403/ |title= Inside the Koch Brothers' Toxic Empire: Together, Charles and David Koch control one of the world's largest fortunes, which they are using to buy up our political system. But what they don't want you to know is how they made all that money |work=Rolling Stone Magazine |date=September 24, 2014 |access-date=November 18, 2020}} According to Mayer, "Over time ... Stalin brutally purged several of Koch's Soviet colleagues. Koch was deeply affected by the experience, and regretted his collaboration." The company also built installations in countries throughout Europe, the Middle East and Asia.{{cite news |title=Fred Koch, Industrialist, Dies in Utah |author=Dick Dilsaver |newspaper=The Wichita Beacon |date=November 18, 1967 }} During the 21st century, when the political donations of Koch's descendants became a matter of controversy, Koch's work in Europe also entered public scrutiny. In 1934, Koch had partnered with William Rhodes Davis to build the Hamburg Oil Refinery, the third-largest oil refinery serving the Third Reich, a project which was personally approved by Adolf Hitler; contemporary critics claim this showed a direct tie between fascism and the modern conservative movement, notwithstanding Koch's much greater involvement in the Soviet Union.{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/12/us/politics/father-of-koch-brothers-helped-build-nazi-oil-refinery-book-says.html|title=Father of Koch Brothers Helped Build Nazi Oil Refinery, Book Says|first=Nicholas |last=Confessore |author-link=Nicholas Confessore |access-date=January 12, 2016|date=January 11, 2016|work=The New York Times}}{{cite book |last=Mayer |first=Jane |date= January 24, 2017|title=Dark Money |publisher=Anchor Books |page= 36 |isbn=978-0-307-94790-1 |author-link=Jane Mayer }} In response, Koch President and COO David L. Robertson acknowledged that Winkler-Koch provided the cracking unit for the 1934 Hamburg refinery, but said that it was but one of many "iconic" American companies doing business in Germany at the time.{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2016/01/12/koch-industries-disputes-books-account-of-founders-role-in-building-a-nazi-refinery/|title=Koch Executive Disputes Book's Account of Founder's Role in Nazi Refinery|work=New York Times|date=January 12, 2016|access-date=January 13, 2016|first=Nicholas|last=Confessore}} Robertson provided archival documents showing that from 1928 to 1934, Koch's company helped build 39 cracking units for heavy oil refineries, including ones located in England and France.

Having succeeded in securing the family fortune, Koch joined new partners in 1940 to create the Wood River Oil and Refining Company, which later became known as Koch Industries. In 1946, the firm acquired the Rock Island refinery and crude oil gathering system near Duncan, Oklahoma. Wood River was later renamed the Rock Island Oil and Refining Company.{{cite book |title=Done in Oil: An Autobiography |last=J. Howard |first=Marshall II |year=1994 |publisher=Texas A&M University Press |location=College Station |isbn=0-89096-533-1 }} In 1966, he turned over day-to-day management of the company to his son, Charles Koch.{{cite news |title=Creative destruction 101 |author=Bruce Upbin |author2=Brandon Copple |magazine=Forbes |date=December 14, 1998 }}{{cite web |url=https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/41077/000119312505225697/dex993.htm |title=Summary of Koch Industries History |date=November 14, 2005 |work=sec.gov |publisher=U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission |access-date=February 18, 2010}}

In 1932,{{cite web|url=http://www.maryellenmark.com/text/magazines/fame_new/906N-000-001.html |title=Survival of the Richest |first=Leslie |last=Wayne |date=November 1989}} Koch married Mary Clementine Robinson in Kansas City, Missouri.For the ore/oil tanker named after Fred's wife, see Mary R. Koch. Mary was the daughter of a prominent Kansas City physician,{{cite web|url=https://nymag.com/news/features/67285/index1.html |work=New York |title=The Billionaire's Party – David Koch is New York's second-richest man, a celebrated patron of the arts, and the tea party's wallet |first=Andrew |last=Goldman |date=July 25, 2010}} Ernest Franklin Robinson,[http://www.mixsonian.com/genealogy/mixon-mixson/pg-393.html Mixson Family Genealogy]. Retrieved January 19, 2012 who helped to found the University of Kansas School of Medicine,{{cite web| url=http://kuhistory.com/articles/present-at-the-creation/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130523021237/http://kuhistory.com/articles/present-at-the-creation/ |date=September 6, 1905 |archive-date=23 May 2013 |title=The University of Kansas: 'Present At The Creation'}} and Mary Burnet Kip, who died at an early age. Her mother Mary was the paternal granddaughter of William Ingraham Kip, the Episcopal missionary bishop to California; and the maternal granddaughter of William Burnet Kinney, ambassador to Italy, and his wife, author Elizabeth Stedman (née Dodge). The Kochs had four sons: Frederick (1933–2020), Charles (b. 1935), and twins David (1940–2019) and William (b. 1940).

Fred Koch had a long history of heart problems. His son David described in 2010 how he received word that his father had died: "Father was on a hunting trip bird-shooting in Utah. He was in a blind with a gun loader next to him. He was having heart palpitations and wasn't shooting that well. Finally a lone bird came over. He took the shot and hit it square. The duck falls from the air. He turns to the loader and says, 'Boy, that was a magnificent shot,' and then keels over dead."

In 1928, Koch traveled to the Soviet Union to build oil refineries, but he came to despise communism and Joseph Stalin's regime.{{cite news |title=Mr. Big |author=Daniel Fisher |magazine=Forbes |date=March 13, 2006 |url=https://www.forbes.com/global/2006/0313/024.html }} Koch self-published a 39-page, anti-communist pamphlet "A Business Man Looks at Communism" relating his experiences in the Soviet Union and warning of the threat of Communist take-over.{{cite news |publisher=Al Jazeera |url=http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/7/30/koch-brothers-fatherpolitics.html |date=July 30, 2014 |first=Jason |last=Leopold |title=Revealed: Koch brothers' politics reflect their father's anti-communism |access-date=June 15, 2015}}{{rp|46}} Koch wrote that one of the "Potential Methods of Communist Take-over in U.S.A. by Internal Subversion" was "Infiltration of high offices of government and political parties until the President of the U.S. is a Communist... Even the Vice Presidency would do as it could be easily arranged for the President to commit suicide."{{rp|46}}{{rp|12}} He wrote that "socialism is the precursor to communism,"{{rp|27}} that the Soviet Union was "a land of hunger, misery, and terror",{{cite book |title=A Business Man Looks at Communism |last=Koch |first=Fred C. |year=1960 |publisher=self-published |location=Wichita, KS |url=http://digilib.usm.edu/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/manu&CISOPTR=1420&CISOSHOW=1401}}{{rp|5}} and that he toured the countryside and received what he wrote was a "liberal education in Communist techniques and methods."{{rp|5}} Koch grew persuaded that the Soviet threat needed to be countered in America.

According to journalist Daniel Schulman, writing in Sons of Wichita: How the Koch Brothers Became America's Most Powerful and Private Dynasty, upon his return to the United States, Koch "saw evidence for communist infiltration everywhere" and the pamphlet was "a forceful, though deeply paranoid polemic intended to jar Americans from their apathy."{{cite book |title=Sons of Wichita: How the Koch Brothers Became America's Most Powerful and Private Dynasty |first=Daniel |last=Schulman |author-link=Daniel Schulman (writer)|isbn=978-1455518739 |publisher=Hachette Book Group |year=2014}}{{rp|41, 46}} According to his son, Charles, "Many of the Soviet engineers he worked with were longtime Bolsheviks who had helped bring on the revolution." It deeply bothered Fred Koch that so many of those so committed to the Communist cause were later purged. According to his son, David, his father "was a very conservative Republican and was not a fan of big government," and was paranoid about communism. David told author Brian Doherty his father "was constantly speaking to us children about what was wrong with government and government policy. It's something I grew up with – but a fundamental point of view that big government was bad, and impositions of government controls on our lives and economic fortunes was not good."{{cite book |first=Brian |last=Doherty |title=Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement |publisher=Perseus Books Group |isbn=978-1586483500 |year=2007|page=407}}

In 1958, Koch became a founding member of the John Birch Society, a right-wing American political advocacy group that opposes communist infiltration and supports limited government.{{cite book |title=Roads to Dominion: Right-Wing Movements and Political Power in the United States |last=Diamond |first=Sara |year=1995 |publisher=Guilford Press |location=New York |isbn=0-89862-862-8 |page=[https://archive.org/details/roadstodominionr00diamrich/page/324 324] |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/roadstodominionr00diamrich/page/324 }} Koch held John Birch Society chapter meetings in the basement of his family's home in Wichita, Kansas.{{rp|49}}{{cite news |title=17 things you didn't know about the Koch brothers |first= Matea |last=Gold |newspaper=The Washington Post|date=May 20, 2014 |access-date=July 28, 2015 |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/05/20/17-things-you-didnt-know-about-the-koch-brothers/}}

Also in 1958, Koch helped amend the constitution of the state of Kansas to make Kansas a right-to-work state.{{rp|49}}{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/14/magazine/scott-walker-and-the-fate-of-the-union.html |newspaper=The New York Times |access-date=August 21, 2015 |title=Scott Walker and the Fate of the Union |first=Dan |last=Kaufman |date=June 12, 2015}}

{{Reflist|30em}}

• [https://www.emporia.edu/business/community/kbhf/historical/fred-koch-1992a.html Kansas Business Hall of Fame] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151009104642/http://www.emporia.edu/business/community/kbhf/historical/fred-koch-1992a.html |date=October 9, 2015 }} Historical Honors Award Recipient profile

{{Koch family}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Koch, Fred C.}}

Category:1900 births

Category:1967 deaths

Category:American businesspeople in the oil industry

Category:American political writers

Category:American male non-fiction writers

Category:American people of Dutch descent

Category:People from Quanah, Texas

Category:People from Wichita, Kansas

Category:MIT School of Engineering alumni

Category:Rice University alumni

Fred C. Koch

Category:John Birch Society members

Category:20th-century American non-fiction writers

Category:20th-century American businesspeople

Category:20th-century American engineers

Category:Kansas Republicans

Category:20th-century American male writers

Category:Kansas Business Hall of Fame inductees