The study of Panhandle Eastern's history shows the relationship between regulatory policy and the modern corporation in the twentieth century from a unique perspective, for it extends over three eras. This book shows how entrepreneurs competed, first, in an unregulated industry through the exercise of unrestrained corporate muscle, then as it became increasingly regulated and profitable, and finally in the era of business reorganization and deregulation when regulators changed the structure of the pipeline industry.

Gas Pipelines and the Emergence of America's Regulatory State: A History of Panhandle Eastern Corporation, 1928–1993 (Studies in Economic History and Policy: USA in the Twentieth Century)

Business & Money

Castaneda, Christopher J.

Smith, Clarance M.

Economics

Cambridge University Press

Fifty years ago, in November 1947, Brown &amp; Root helped Kerr-McGee build the first out-of-sight-land offshore platform that produced oil. The date is widely celebrated as the birth of the modern offshore industry. In the years since this historic occasion, Brown &amp; Root has continued to pioneer in the design and construction of offshore pipelines and platforms. Along with the rest of the offshore industry, the company has helped develop technology capable of finding and producing oil in deepwater and in harsh environments around the world. This history puts a human face on the process of technological change. Using the words of many of those who took part in Brown &amp; Root's offshore activities, this book recounts their efforts to find practical ways to recover offshore oil. Building on lessons learned in the Gulf of Mexico before and after World War II, the company's personnel adapted offshore technologies to conditions encountered in Venezuela, the Middle East, Alaska, and other regions before becoming one of the first engineering and construction companies to confront the challenge of North Sea development in the 1960's. Through times of boom and bust in the oil industry, the search for effective technology had continued. The process has not always been smooth, but the results have been impressive. As we enter a new and exciting era in offshore technology, the history of the first fifty years of the industry provides a useful context for understanding current and future events.

Offshore Pioneers: Brown & Root and the History of Offshore Oil and Gas

Pratt, Joseph A.

Priest, Tyler

Industries

Gulf Professional Publishing

Immediately after World War II, several Houston-based firms organized to transport natural gas from the giant fields of the Southwest to the large utility companies that distributed energy in the urban-industrial centers along the East coast. This relatively inexpensive and clean-burning fuel quickly made spectacular inroads into markets previously served by coal and petroleum. Texas Eastern was one of the major competitors in the post-war industry. The company's origins were unique. Early in 1947, a group of entrepreneurs led by Herman and George R. Brown, founders of the Brown &amp; Root construction firm, purchased the Big Inch and Little Big Inch pipelines from the U.S. government, which had built them to transport crude oil and petroleum product vital to the war effort. By converting these pipelines to the transportation of natural gas, the founders of Texas Eastern got in on the ground floor of a dynamic industry. With full access to company files, Christopher J. Castaneda and Joseph A. Pratt follow the company from its creation in 1947 to its purchase by Panhandle Eastern Corporation in 1989. During this period, Texas Eastern's strategy focused on expansion of its natural gas system and diversification into other related industries including liquefied natural gas sales, North Sea oil and gas production, and Houston real estate. In the 1970s and 1980s, the company faced a series of challenges from the energy crisis, the deregulation of natural gas, and the hostile takeover movement in the energy industries. By the late 1980s, the process of diversification had come full circle, as the company sold off subsidiaries and refocused on the transmission of natural gas as a part of Panhandle Eastern's vast system.

From Texas to the East: A Strategic History of Texas Eastern Corporation

History

Americas

Texas A&M University Press

Herman and George R. Brown, formidable figures in the construction industry and Texas politics, were an almost perfect business team. Practical and decisive Herman, a natural builder, and university trained, soft-spoken George, a natural salesperson, combined their individual strengths with their shared strong work ethic and ambition and developed Brown and Root, a company that began by building roads and grew into a diversified international construction company. Builders serves both as a history of their lives and as an examination of business life in mid-twentieth-century America. Five years after he began a small road construction company in Central Texas in 1914, Herman, using capital from brother-in-law Dan Root, formed Brown &amp; Root, with George joining the company in 1922. After searching aggressively for work during the Depression, their big break came when they won the contract for the Marshall Ford Dam on the Colorado River in 1936. During World War II they grew into a national presence by building several large-scale military projects, and carried that momentum through the post-war boom years, when Brown and Root expanded to become a very successful international company. In addition to examining Herman and George Brown's business accomplishments, Joseph A. Pratt and Christopher J. Castaneda also address the political influence and antiunionism associated with the Brown name. The authors present a balanced account of both the Browns' treatment of workers and of their longtime relationship with Lyndon Baines Johnson. Also included is information about the Brown Foundation, created in 1951 and through which George in particular worked on the development of educational and cultural institutions. This carefully researched and well-written biography of two brothers who strove for success and emphatically achieved it is sure to interest students and enthusiasts of both business and Texas history.

Builders: Herman and George R. Brown

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

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