Koch Industries

Fred Chase Koch was an American chemical engineer and entrepreneur who founded the oil refinery firm that later became Koch Industries, the second-largest privately-held company in the United States. Fred C. Koch was born in Quanah, Texas, the son of Mattie B. and a Dutch immigrant, Harry Koch.... Harry began 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, and owned the Tribune-Chief newspaper. Fred attended Rice Institute in Houston from 1917 to 1919, and graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1922, where he obtained a degree in Chemical Engineering Practice. 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, the firm became Winkler-Koch Engineering Company.
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Charles de Ganahl Koch is co-owner, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Koch Industries Inc., the second-largest privately held... company by revenue in the United States according to a 2010 Forbes survey. He was ranked 18th on Forbes World's Billionaires list of 2011 , with an estimated net worth of $25 billion, deriving from his 42% stake in Koch Industries. His brother David H. Koch, also owns 42% of Koch Industries, and serves as Executive Vice President. The brothers inherited the business from their father, Fred C. Koch, and have since expanded the business to 2,600 times its inherited size. Originally involved exclusively in the oil refining and chemical business, Koch Industries has expanded to include process and pollution control equipment and technologies, polymers and fibers, minerals, fertilizers, commodity trading and services, forest and consumer products, and ranching, producing a wide variety of well-known brands, such as Stainmaster carpet, Lycra fiber, Quilted Northern tissue and Dixie paper products.
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