Oil to Apricots and In-Between

By Richard Collins

Richard L. Collins was born in Casper, Wyoming, and was raised in Sunnyvale, California. He attended Fremont Union High School and San Jose State University. Thankfully, Richard was prodded by his father to learn a trade as a backup to make a living. Richard entered the electrical industry, wher

• Language: English
• Publisher: RICHARD COLLINS
• Release date: Sep 10, 2021
• ISBN: 9781737854067

Richard Collins

Richard Collins is Visiting Professor at the LINK Centre; Visiting Professor at Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne; and Professor of Media Studies at the Open University, United Kingdom.

Book preview

Preview by Writer Character Richard Wilson

This manuscript is a biographical business management novel and relates and describes in detail a diversified, closely-held private business operation owned and operated by a family in the United States of America. This book is about family management structure and operation wound around the flair of a novel. The management style of my family characters can be studied and tested in other companies because the success of our company has depended on trust, honesty, integrity, and pulling together as a team under all conditions.

Our family company named WY-OKA, is a closely held private corporation with all stock being held by blood-related family members. The company was started and developed from scratch and is continuing to operate successfully today. From day one, there were severe, dangerous, extensive roadblocks and pitfalls that the early management of our business encountered; Some were designed and put in place by competitors/criminals who would have rather not seen my Great Grand Dad enter the business and did everything but issue a murder hit contract to stifle his operation. Other issues came from natural progressions that were going to occur regardless of any preventive actions that we might have taken.

I discuss roadblocks in chapters of this book how larger companies tried their best to break us and take us down. My Great Grandad’s motto—Never Give Up - We Are Not Quitters — he lived by it then, and we still live by it today.

In addition, our large family entered into the mix during the growth of the business over the last 120 years. We have been fortunate to have enough blood-connected relatives that were and are interested in managing the growth and expansion of the company to the extent of the operation today. The guidance and rules set up by my Great Granddad have led our family-owned, closely-held private company down the proper path for continued growth and profitability. His long-range vision has been a true guiding light for us to live and operate the company.

I have been around and enjoyed business processes most of my early adult life and have seen large, strong old-line companies go bankrupt and die off. To me, it is a terrible shame to see the reputation of any strong, previously viable company go down the tubes because of bad operating management, lack of a trained succession of management, or greed. I am referring to construction companies because that is the area I am most familiar with. After high school graduation, I entered the workforce as an apprentice inside wireman and was employed by Sunnyvale Electric Works (SEW) for most of my apprenticeship and journeyman electrician experience.

I want to share a couple of examples that I am very familiar with regarding the failure of management to execute proper guidelines with a business plan and operating rules for future managers. In other words, strategy and tactics were never put in place for long-range company operations.

SEW recently completed a large luxury hotel in San Jose, California. The general contractor was an old-line general contractor over 75 years in business with headquarters in the San Francisco Bay Area. This project was the last job that company ever built. Even the least experienced project manager or general foreman could have seen the writing on the wall during the startup of the construction process for this building. The drawings were terribly incomplete, and the information process was almost nonexistent. Supervision was street hired and either totally unqualified, lazy, not committed to the job, or a combination of all three plus more. The worst thing of all was the lack of information to install and complete the work process and deliver a product to the owner that he had paid for. SEW had negotiated the electrical contract and suffered a significant monetary loss plus a huge loss of productive time that should have never happened. The damage could have been much worse if Gene, the founder of SEW, had not assumed oversight of the project, primarily focusing on the information and documentation process. The new hire big mouth job Superintendent for the GC thought he could steamroll the subcontractors and get the job done his way no matter what. Our portion of the job was documented very well by Gene and our general foreman. The General Contractor agreed to a claim of mediation to address the SEW loss of money on the project. Gene and Jim, the President of SEW, presented their case and were awarded over one million dollars of a 1.8-million-dollar claim. The project was still in the loss column for SEW, just not so severe as it could have been.

Bankruptcy was the only choice for the general contractor; staying in business was not in the cards—a shame for a once heavy-duty contractor that performed extensive construction work all over the Western United States. I am sure companies in all sorts of other types of businesses suffer the same endings.

Clearly, the younger family management that had taken over the day-to-day operations of the company was not up to the task and was more interested in spending money than making money. You dig a little deeper and find out that the original owners and starters of the firm had not pursued in depth the desire of the young people that were selected to take over the operation of the firm. The new operators had extended pedigrees from great universities, but it pretty much ended there. Every time I think about that situation, it brings back memories of my Great Grand Dad and his vision of By-Laws, education, apprenticeships, and preparation to run and manage a company of any size.

I personally know of one other general contracting, heavy engineering firm that suffered the same demise. This particular company had built some of the most extensive facilities in Northern California, from infrastructure systems and plants to private semiconductor and electronics plants. SEW did many projects with this San Jose Based contractor, including high-rise buildings, water treatment plants, and semiconductor fabrication plants. I was fortunate enough to be able to work on several of these projects as an electrician, and I marveled at the expertise of their job Superintendents and General Foremen; they were well trained, organized, and helpful.

When the original founder of the business decided to retire, he turned over the business operation to his son-in-law and other shirttail relatives. That was the fatal mistake; the construction company only lasted a few more years until it folded. It is a sad state of affairs when something like these two company endings that I have described occur.

# # #

The primary theme of this book is about how a family can keep a company moving in the right direction with attitude, honesty, growth, and profitability. After all, we live on this planet to enjoy a productive lifestyle and sleep well at night.

Our action as a company is based on my Great Grand-Dads rules towards our family member’s participation in the management of his startup company, his By-Laws are relatively strict, and the rules are based on a business standpoint. Our family life differs from our business position completely and is established as a loving, caring entity that would protect and defend each other entirely if a situation developed that required that position.

The growth and development of our family into the business had some severe repercussions and was not always a pretty sight. I will discuss alcoholism, depression, laziness, lack of ambition, and any other area that affected the growth of our business. As I said before, the positives far outweigh the negatives, or we could have never made it this far in our successes with our business endeavors. I am very excited to share this experience with other people and families who might be considering moving in the direction of operating and growing family business. Throughout this manuscript, there are targeted management points that I believe are extremely important toward the successful operation of a family business. I hope you discover all of them and are able to put them to use not only in a family business but any entrepreneur type of endeavor.

Disclaimer

Oil to Apricots, and in Between, A Tribute to the Long-Term Success of a Family Business, is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, business establishments, or locales is entirely coincidental.

MISSION STATEMENT

Family Company Goal - Treat all Employees and Customers the Way We Want to be Treated while Making our way through this Wonderful Life, remembering at all times the Glass is Always Half Full.

We are using and maintaining the tools at hand, Attitude, Honesty, Growth, and Profitability We will Create and Build a Solid Structure for the Growth and Prosperity of our Family.

Manuscript Cast of Characters

Henry Wilson, Great Grand Father, Founder and First President of Oklahoma Oil Service, first CEO 1890-1915. He passed away in 1919.

Ben Wilson, Great Uncle, Second President appointed 1900 with Henry becoming CEO and Ben serving until 1910 as President then becoming CEO in 1915.

Uncle Ben was a businessman owning a company that serviced and repaired railroad cars for the trans-continental railroad line. He had a very profitable business and made perfect money while maintaining strong customer relationships. Henry talked him into a family business partnership in his oil company with the intent of Ben becoming an officer of Oklahoma Oil Service. That partnership was a historic moment for the Oklahoma Oil Service crude oil business. It gave them much-needed cash to upgrade equipment, lease, and purchase more land.

Ben Collins had never married and had no family to be involved in the business. He passed away very unexpectedly in1917.

George Wilson, Grand Dad, President/CEO, from 1910-1935. Earlier about 1906, George had homesteaded land in Glendo, Wyoming, with the intent to farm wheat and explore the possibility of coal strip mining. He planned to retire and turn over the oil company operation to his son Charles as President in 1935. All of the young kids had at least a high school education and some college, but the expense of going to university was too steep a hill to climb for a large growing family. Of course, not all family members who wanted to be an officer in the company had the credentials that Great Grandad set forth in the by-laws. Some exceptions were granted.

Charles Wilson, Uncle, Third President from 1935-1940, continued as President/CEO during the World War 2 war effort until 1946. He resided in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for his entire tenure as President/CEO.

The large oil conglomerates were relentless with their intent to drive small operators out of business. The primary tool they used to accomplish the task of bankrupting small operators was the transportation of oil. All companies relied on the railroad tank car business to move their oil. Of course, they wanted a railroad spur close to their oilfield operation so they could squeeze out small private company shipments by tying up the loading platforms with the loading of their larger tank car shipments. In the event that the larger company did not have a spur, they would still tie up the tank cars by giving massive shipping rebates to the railroad companies. The rebate process skirted the corruption charge by the US Government because it was tough to prove, being that rebating went on undisturbed for many years. Of course, John D. Rockefeller denied that rebating ever took place in the Standard Oil Company.

Fay Wilson, My Dad, was not interested in being an officer in an oil company (only non-corporation involved relative I will talk about because he is my Dad).

Dad lived in Glendo and helped Grandad manage the farm during the great depression and worked on the family farm on and off during the seasons. He decided after being raised in the farming/ranching community he was more inclined to live in a city and make his living outside of the family business. Hence after he married my mother, they moved to Casper, Wyoming, and he learned a trade as a floor covering craftsman. World War II broke out, and during the war effort, Dad worked as a machinist for an oil field shop making oil drilling tools.

After the war ended and my parents moved to California, which turned out for our family to be a very successful move spearheaded by my Dad’s former boss, who had relocated his furniture store business from Casper, Wyoming to Los Altos, California. He helped Mom and Dad with the location and purchase of a home in Sunnyvale, and that relocation was one of the smartest decisions my parents made during their married life.

I am so thankful that my mom and Dad stressed to me the importance of learning a trade and completing higher education. I consider myself very lucky to have been raised in the idea factory of the world, Silicon Valley.

Alice Moses Wilson, My Mother, graduated from the University of Wyoming and then taught K-8 in a one-room schoolhouse in Glendo, Wyoming. She met my Dad, and they later decided to get married but had to get married secretly in Nebraska because it was against state law for a woman to be married and also hold a job in education in the state of Wyoming during the great depression. Quite an unbelievable law as we look at it today that was the era of the great depression, and jobs were very scarce. The logic the state maintained was that a married woman did not need a job as a teacher. Enforcement of the law would create an opening for a male teacher.

Henry (Hank) Wilson, Uncle, Oil division fourth President and CEO of WY-OKA 1946-1965. He was instrumental in developing our coal strip mining division and suggested a new name for the company-Wyoming-Oklahoma Energy, later abbreviated to WY-OKA Energy. Uncle Hank served in the US Army Combat Engineers Corps during WWII. He passed unexpectedly in 1970.

The late 40’s and 50’s era was a boom for the strip-mining coal industry. Huge coal was discovered in the Powder River Basin in the Eastern side of the state of Wyoming, and coal mining companies were struggling against each other to lease mineral rights from landowners. The major drawback at the time was the shipment of coal. No railroad lines existed in that part of the state, and truck transportation was not a reality because the volume of coal necessary to be delivered to a customer was very much above what trucking could do and maintain any sort of a profitable business. Strip mining of coal is, to a large degree, equipment intensive.

Bill Wilson, Uncle, First Coal and Gas Division president 1960-1970. Uncle Bill moved from Tulsa to Gillette, Wyoming, after our coal division was showing good possibilities of success. He purchased a cattle ranch about 30 miles out of Gillette and resided there raising beef cattle. He retired from day-to-day management in 1971. Uncle Bill passed unexpectedly in 1981.

The same type of conflict experience with mineral rights leases (NG), landowners, and big energy companies. Big energy companies are ruthless in the exploitation of farmers, ranchers, and competitors.

Robert Wilson, Uncle, Coal and gas division President, 1970-1980 and now current WY-OKA CEO,1980 - present. The next step will be Chairman of the Board and new division Farming President while grooming his son Jay to be Farming boss.

George (Crip) Wilson, Uncle, First Property Development Division President in Phoenix. 1980-1997, Served in US Army Air Corps WW Il Eighth Air Corps as a B-17 crew member in the European theater.

Jerry Wilson, Cousin, The Division office is located in Scottsdale, Arizona. Jerry is working as assistant Property Development President under Uncle George and is being groomed for President.

Phillip Wilson, Cousin, Current President Oil Division. He and his wife own a horse ranch and are residents of Tulsa, Oklahoma. His Division office is in our new headquarters building on the outskirts of Tulsa.

John Wilson, Cousin, Current President Coal Division, resident of Gillette, Wyoming, trained under Bill, his Dad, to take over as President of Coal and Gas Division.

Jay Brooks Wilson, Cousin, In training to be Farming Division President.

Kasey Wilson, Cousin-Slated to be WY-OKA, CFO, currently working in Tulsa under current CEO/CFO Robert Wilson but slated to move to Casper Office first of the year.

Woodie Wilson, Cousin, training in Phoenix, working for a trucking company serving his apprenticeship in dock management and dock organization.

Richard Wilson, I, Current warehousing division president, and slated to be next CEO, WY-OKA Energy. I am currently fulfilling my company requirement of being in a successful management position for at least five years.

Dave Wilson, Cousin, Currently, he is supervising the Natural Gas drilling and pump station construction in the Wind River Range of the Rockies in Western Wyoming. If I am voted CEO later, I intend to lobby the Board to grant an exception to the By-Laws and appoint Dave as an officer in the company and appoint him President of Natural Gas Division.

George Wilson, Cousin, Working-Training for a management position in coal division.

Amy Wilson, John’s youngest daughter now in college, and she is studying financial management and business management. Of course, we hope that she will want to work in our company when she graduates.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1

History of Start-Up

Great Granddad understood the business and making money even though he only had a few years of grade school that he could count as his education.

He was working for a transcontinental railroad and saving his money to buy a cattle ranch.

His initial purchase of land in Oklahoma was with the intent to raise cattle; based on his logic; people will have the need to eat food forever. But as the century moved ahead, his gift of having compelling and strong long-range vision kicked in.

He recognized that the natural resource of crude oil was becoming very important in the growing industrialized society of the United States. His logic was centered on the large oil companies that were drilling test wells all over the state of Oklahoma but doing their best to keep their drilling activities quiet.

At this point Great Grand Dad had about ten sections of land and was being hounded constantly by large oil companies to lease his land mineral rights which he

Could have done and become a very wealthy man. That plan was not part of his original mission statement. I say mission statement, but nothing was in writing; it was all in his head. He did not have a mission statement because he did not even have a business or a business plan at this time. His plan was to ranch cattle and make his living in that fashion.

In addition, he did not want outside company oil rigs and drilling rigs all over his property working in their quest to find more oil. If there were going to be oil rigs on his land, they were going to be his own rigs.

His long-range vision was still very much intact and visible. The result of his determination to succeed was the purchase of as much land as he could get his hands on with his limited funds. While he was still working for the railroad, he had the opportunity to travel around the state to look for possible land purchases or possible negotiations to lease or buy the mineral rights.

The fact that the large oil companies wanted to purchase the mineral rights to his initial ten sections of land stimulated his interest in the drilling for oil. The problem was that Grand-Dad did not have the funds to hire a drilling rig. The drillers were being bribed and extorted by big oil companies resulting in exorbitant drilling prices for individuals. In one case, there were threats of violence if Grand-Dad did not back off of his

Desire to be in the oil business. He started carrying firearms, as did all of the ranch hands that he employed.

It was a tough time for the growing family. This was a point in time that the large industrial oil companies did their best to blackball Grand-Dad in his effort to drill for oil and grow his oil business. This was also a time period in which big oil was indeed a criminal enterprise that prayed on smaller businesses and forced them to leave either monetarily or by using physical force.

I have researched my Great Grand-Dad’s early life extensively and discovered many criminal acts that were plotted against him by big oil companies. In fact, early on, I considered revenge toward the very companies that were trying to wipe him off of the map. I will go into detail (as you read along in my story) of the plots by the subversive groups and the oil companies that funded the corruption that was very pervasive during that period of time.

He could not get a driller on his land for fifteen years because the price was too high, not even being close to reasonable. Grand-Dad even looked into the probability of purchasing a drilling rig, but that move seemed to him to be an unmanageable situation. The result was he was extorted and forced to sell a third of his land to the large oil companies so that he might afford a driller to work his land in the exploration for oil.

Driller hit oil on the first hole, but then the price of a pumping rig and derrick was out of sight up. The big oil companies wanted the rest of his land, and they had bribed the equipment companies not to sell to Grand Dad at the going price but for an increase in the price of about one hundred percent. Talk about a criminal action; big oil has been in that mode since day one. Needless to say, big oil is not a friend of our family. I will go into more detail as we move along with regard to our family dealings with big oil.

One thing after another stood in the way of my Great Grand-Dads progress. Moving the oil to market in some sort of economical fashion was the next hurdle to cross. A railroad spur was out of the question expensive. He reverted to a mule drawn tank wagons. Many circumstances of tankers and mules being destroyed by accident resulted in Grand Dad’s tank trains being escorted. He had to resort to armed guards on his tanker trains even though he did not have the extra funding for that endeavor. His progress was plodding because of being hampered by big oil, but he was determined to succeed, so he decided that his company needed a name if it was going to be a viable going concern. The decision was made in 1882—Oklahoma Oil Service was the new name.

Chapter 2

Basic Corporate StructureWith Some History

WY-OKA was started and still today is a closely held family corporation, and we have no desire to go into the public market.

Basic By-Laws and Corporate Rules that were developed by my Great Grand Dad formed the culture for us to operate the company and are mostly still in practice today.

Corporate rules for becoming an officer of the Company; Family bloodline, college degree or trade completion, success in some business outside of WY-OKA is a requirement. It doesn’t matter what kind of degree you have because what counts is how you