FOR THE AGES
Max M. Fisher, 1908-2005
Acumen
Business
From the oil refinery to the boardroom to the community, Max Fisher's quiet trust was legendary.
Friends and business associates: A. Alfred Taubman and Max M. Fisher
uotables
"Every pore of him was con-
structive. He could criticize
things but was always look-
ing for something positive,
to make it better."
— Former Secretary of State
George Shultz
or Max M. Fisher, it all started with
a handshake. For more than 20
years, the business relationship that
ultimately formed the nucleus of Fisher's
fortune, estimated by Forbes magazine at
$775 million, was held together by nothing
more than a handshake and trust.
Vintage accounts in the archives of
Marathon Ashland Petroleum LLC in Findlay,
Ohio, paint a story of Fisher's high business
integrity and the deep respect it earned for
him. It also provides insight into how Fisher,
the first-generation son of Jewish immi-
grants who fled Byelorussia and eventually
settled in Salem, Ohio, successfully con-
ducted business in the non-Jewish dominat-
ed oil industry.
The saga really begins in 1933, three
years after Fisher's graduation from Ohio
State University in Columbus. He had
attended OSU on a football scholarship
while earning a degree in business adminis-
tration.
The Keystone Oil Co. owned a reclama-
tion plant on 4.5 acres in southwest Detroit
where the company re-refined auto
crankcase oil. The business was partially
owned by Max's father, William. When the
oil reclamation plant burned down, Max,
who had moved to Detroit and was working
for his father as a $15-a-week salesman,
suggested that Keystone build a refinery.
William Fisher and his associates rejected
the idea, but Max persuaded Henry Wegner
and Bill Slaughter to become his partners in
the Aurora Gasoline Co. Subsequently, Max
and his partners purchased a 50 percent
share of Keystone, and Aurora was soon a
profitable refining operation.
Aurora's original headquarters were in
Wegner's home until expansion of the plant
facilities at Oakwood Highway and
Schaeffer Road required the company to
move its employees. The new corporate
headquarters were in the rear of a convert-
ed bank building at the corner of Wyoming
and Puritan in northwest Detroit. Aurora
bought the building in 1943 when it needed
additional office space.
The turning point in Aurora's history came
in 1938 when Max paid a visit to James
Donnell II, then vice president of Ohio Oil
Co. in Findlay. (Donnell later served as pres-
ident of Ohio Oil as well as of the renamed
Marathon Oil Co. from 1948 to 1972.)
The Handshake
According to Marathon's records, there was
a surplus of available crude oil at the time,
and suppliers such as Ohio Oil were offering
refiners discounts of nearly 50 percent on
the posted prices of crude oil. Fisher star-
tled Donnell at their meeting when he told
him he wanted to buy crude oil at the post-
ed price.
Not quite sure of what he was hearing,
Donnell called in two other executives.
Fisher then outlined a deal in which Aurora
would pay a premium for crude provided
that Ohio Oil would, in the future, supply all
the oil Aurora needed — even if supplies
became tight.
The agreement was sealed with a hand-
shake. For Ohio Oil, it meant they had
gained their largest customer at that time
for crude oil. But what did it mean for Fisher
and Aurora?
Max Fisher's remarkable business pre-
science soon paid off. America's entry into
World War II resulted in severe crude short-
ages, but Donnell upheld his part of the bar-
gain and provided Aurora the needed raw
material the company needed to survive the
tough times.
But it didn't end there. Donnell never
approached Fisher to put the contract in
writing. The two entrepreneurs and their
companies operated solely on mutual trust,
a fact that Max Fisher never forgot.
A company history of Ohio Oil-Marathon
states, "A handshake at Marathon has
always been as sacred as a written con-
tract." An unidentified retiree is quoted, "If
you made a deal, you damn well did it, even
if you knew you had made a mistake." The
business marriage between Max Fisher and
Ohio Oil-Marathon was bound to succeed as
both Fisher and Donnell took great pride in
their personal as well as business integrity.
Thus it was no surprise that when Fisher
and his associates decided to sell Aurora in
1959, the first company he thought of as a
buyer was Ohio Oil. The news that Aurora
was for sale quickly spread through the
industry, and Fisher soon found himself with
11 offers — but none from Ohio Oil.
Fisher, who was chairman of Aurora, flew
to Findlay and offered Aurora to Donnell.
The directors of the company declined to
meet Fisher's original offer and made a
counteroffer. Despite the fact that it was
somewhat less than what Fisher wanted, he
accepted the offer — stated in some pub-
lished reports as $40 million.
Peter Golden, Fisher's biographer, con-
firms that the deal was sealed by a hand-
shake between Fisher and Donnell. Almost
certainly, because of its magnitude, it was
later formalized by legal documents.
The purchase not only let Ohio Oil dou-
ble its refining capacity, but brought them
680 "Speedway 79" service stations in
the Midwest and the valuable Scipio oil
fields in Michigan. Overnight, Ohio Oil's
gasoline sales shot past the national
industry average.
Southfield industrialist Joel D. Tauber, a
longtime friend of Fisher, recalls a story of
how Fisher's business acumen helped
Aurora survive yet another one of the short-
ages during World War .11.
"I remember a story my father-in-law,
Barney Keywell, who was in the scrap busi-
ness, told me about how Max was having a
problem getting material for his oil wells.
But Max found a solution to the problem,
and my father-in-law supplied him with the
pipes. he needed. Max couldn't get them as
new, but he was able to get them as scrap.
"Max always believed in patience and
perseverance," said Tauber. "He not only
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2005
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