Rugged Texacan

For his temerity in trimming the elder Morgan in a stock deal, John W. ("Bet-a-Million") Gates was "exiled'' from Wall Street about 1900. One year later oil gushed in Texas and Gates plunged heavily in a struggling little business known as Texas Co. To sell its oil abroad, Texaco bought up a fleet of tankers. One of the tankers was captained by a blond, husky stripling of 22 named T. Rieber. Captain T. Rieber would not even commit himself as to his birthplace, which was in Sweden, or his first name, which was Torkild. This close-mouthed independence so pleased the rulers of Texaco that Captain Rieber was soon sent ashore. With a mind for nothing but work, he learned oil from the ground to the filling station before he quit Texaco in 1919 to work for American Republics Corp. (oil holding company).

In 1927 he went back to Texaco as vice president in charge of shipping and exporting. Not even in a company with the rugged tradition of Texaco was there room for two such rugged individuals as Torkild Rieber and Texaco's President Ralph Clinton Holmes. President Holmes, being the less rugged, was forced out in 1933. To make the break less apparent Charles Bismark Ames was made board chairman, allowed to run the company until he died last month. Last week, when Torkild Rieber, who wears rough brown suits and still speaks with an accent, assumed the chairmanship in Manhattan, it was merely to become Texaco's strong man in name as well as in fact.

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