John Wesley Van Dyke

When the Sherman Antitrust Act broke up Standard Oil Trust in 1911, John Van Dyke became president of the Atlantic Refining Company. Without the huge integrated operation of the former parent company, Atlantic Refining faced many challenges. The company owned three refineries in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Franklin, Pennsylvania. Its domestic markets were confined to the states of Delaware and Pennsylvania. The company did not own or lease any oil wells, pipe lines, or oil tankers, and though sixty per cent of its business was foreign, it had no foreign sales force; it was several million dollars in debt to its former associates.

Van Dyke developed a business plan to expand Atlantic's domestic and foreign markets, but domestic sales came to a halt when the U.S. entered World War I in April 1917. Prior to U.S. involvement in the war, gasoline exports increased to the Allied Forces. As air forces emerged, the demand for aviation grade gasoline grew, and during the time of the U.S. involvement in World War I, fifty percent of the aviation fuel sent abroad was produced at Atlantic's Point Breeze Refinery.

After the war, Van Dyke returned to his business plan for expansion. In response to changes in the source areas of crude oil, he focused on building up the fleet of oil tanker ships owned by the company. A second strategy was to produce oil, rather than rely on purchased crude. By the mid-1930s, Atlantic was producing oil in Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico from more than 1,000 domestic oil wells.^[10]

Atlantic's expansion of foreign markets began with the opening of the company's first foreign office in Paris in the spring of 1919. Six months later, a branch was opened in Italy. In 1923, the company entered the South African market, and by the following year had offices in all of Western Europe, on the north, west and south coasts of Africa, and in South America. In 1926, in partnership with Union Oil Company of California, the company began business in Australia.^[10]

John Van Dyke retired as president of the Atlantic Refining Company in 1927, at which time he became chairman of the board. Prior to the Great Depression, a boom period occurred and Van Dyke took an unpopular stance in restraining Atlantic's growth. Although employee hours were cut, wages were maintained, and the company met all of its obligations, and continued its dividends.

On November 20, 1937, an 18,500 ton, welded oil tanker, (the first American-built turbo-electric tanker), was launched at Chester, Pennsylvania, bearing the name of "J.W. Van Dyke."^[11]

Having returned to Philadelphia in poor health from a trip to Brazil, Van Dyke died at the age of 89, in September 1939.^[12] Van Dyke's will created an educational endowment fund for the children of the Atlantic's employees in the amount of $1.5 million.^[13]

In 1966, Atlantic Refining merged with the Richfield Oil Company of California creating the Atlantic Richfield Company, (ARCO).