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Torkild Rieber (March 13, 1882 – August 10, 1968) was a Norwegian immigrant to the United States who became chairman of the Texas Company (Texaco). Born in a small town in Norway, Rieber became a seaman at the age of 15. By 1904 he was the master of an oil tanker, which was bought the next year by the newly founded Texas Company, or Texaco. He rose steadily through the ranks to become chairman in 1935. The next year he arranged for Texaco to buy the Barco oil concession in Colombia. Over the next three years he oversaw the major engineering feat of opening the remote oilfield and building a pipeline through rugged and jungle-covered terrain to the Caribbean coast. Rieber was sympathetic to the Fascist regimes in Europe in the 1930s, and supplied oil on credit to Franco's forces during the Spanish Civil War. He also purchased tankers from Germany in exchange for oil. The last tanker was delivered from Hamburg after the outbreak of World War II. For a while Texaco continued to ship oil to Germany via South America. When Rieber's ties to the Nazis were revealed in August 1940 there was a scandal and he was forced to resign. Rieber continued in the oil industry. After Iran nationalized British oil holdings in 1951, followed by a western-sponsored coup in 1953 that restored the Shah to power, Rieber helped negotiate a settlement of the oil dispute. ==Early years== Rieber was born in Voss, Norway, on March 13, 1882, son of the owner of a dye works in a small town about from Bergen. His family was Lutheran, and he was brought up in an environment where alcohol, dancing and gambling were strictly forbidden. At the age of 15 Rieber left home and joined the full-rigged sailing ship ''Hiawatha'' on a six-month voyage around Cape Horn to San Francisco. On return to Norway he attended a school for sailors, and then found work for two years as quartermaster on a barkentine ferrying indentured Indian laborers from Calcutta to British sugar plantations in the West Indies. In 1901, aged 18, he was in command of a French sailing tanker when he was injured in a shipboard fight while docked in Delaware Bay. He was hospitalized and lost his command. After recovering, Rieber found a position as mate on a Texan oil tanker, the first to leave Texaco's Spindletop facility in Texas. In 1904 he became master of the vessel. Rieber's tanker was bought by the three-year-old Texaco in 1905. After three more years at sea, he was given the job of building a terminal for Texaco at Bayonne, New Jersey. The terminal came into operation before it was complete, and the wooden buildings twice burned down. Rieber arranged for them to be quickly rebuilt. Rieber was then assigned to the company's head office. Rieber married Miriam Marbe in 1909. They had two children, a girl and a boy. Miriam died in 1938. During World War I (1914–1918) he was superintendent of terminals and assistant superintendent of the oil refinery at Port Arthur, Texas. The first boss of Texaco, Joseph Stephen Cullinan, fell out with Texaco's directors in 1913 and left to form another oil company, American Republics Corporation. After World War I ended, Rieber left Texaco and became a vice-president at Cullinan's new company. The company struggled to get organized, and in 1927 Rieber accepted an offer to return to Texaco as vice president in charge of exports and marine transportation. He acquired a fleet of new tankers and opened up markets around the world for Texaco. In 1929 and 1930 he tried unsuccessfully to reach an agreement with Heath Eves of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (later to become British Petroleum) for the two companies to cooperate in Europe or other markets where BP did not have a partner. In 1935 he was appointed chairman of Texaco, with William Starling Sullivant Rodgers as president. Rieber featured on the cover of ''Time magazine'' on 4 May 1936. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Torkild Rieber」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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