John Howard Pew (January 27, 1882 – November 27, 1971) was an American philanthropist and president of

Sunoco Sunoco LP is an American master limited partnership organized under Delaware General Corporation Law, Delaware state law and headquartered in Dallas, Texas. Dating back to 1886, the company has transformed from a vertically integrated energy ...

(Sun Oil Company).

Biography

J. Howard Pew was born in

Bradford, Pennsylvania Bradford is a city in McKean County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is located close to the border with New York state and approximately south of Buffalo, New York. Home to an oil refinery, Zippo headquarters and a University of Pittsburgh b ...

in 1882 and raised as a devout

Presbyterian Presbyterianism is a historically Reformed Protestant tradition named for its form of church government by representative assemblies of elders, known as "presbyters". Though other Reformed churches are structurally similar, the word ''Pr ...

. In 1886 Pew's father, Joseph Newton Pew, Sr. (1848–1912) started an oil business in Pennsylvania, expanding to Texas when oil was discovered near Beaumont in 1901. This company became known as the

Sun Oil Company Sunoco LP is an American master limited partnership organized under Delaware state law and headquartered in Dallas, Texas. Dating back to 1886, the company has transformed from a vertically integrated energy company to a distributor of fuel ...

. J. Howard Pew attended

Shady Side Academy } Shady Side Academy is an independent preparatory school in Fox Chapel, Pennsylvania in Greater Pittsburgh. Founded in 1883 as an all-male night school in the Shadyside neighborhood of Pittsburgh, the academy now offers a secular coeducation ...

Grove City College Grove City College (GCC) is a private, conservative Christian liberal arts college in Grove City, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1876 as a normal school, the college emphasizes a humanities core curriculum and offers 60 majors and si ...

, and

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

and then worked as a refinery engineer for one of his father's companies. In 1912 with his brother Joseph N. Pew, Jr., J. Howard Pew took over management of the Sun Oil Company (now known as Sunoco) improving the company's refining, marketing and distribution systems, and buying or developing energy production operations.John Howard Pew, Mary Sennholz
''Faith and freedom: the journal of a great American''
J. Howard Pew, By John Howard Pew, Mary Sennholz (Grove City College, 1975) In 1934, he purchased and reorganized the Chilton Company, a publisher of several national magazines. He was an early sponsor and director of ''

Christianity Today ''Christianity Today'' is an evangelical Christian media magazine founded in 1956 by Billy Graham. It is published by Christianity Today International based in Carol Stream, Illinois. ''The Washington Post'' calls ''Christianity Today'' "eva ...

'' from 1956 until his death. He was a member of the

Mont Pelerin Society The Mont Pelerin Society (MPS), founded in 1947, is an international academic society of Economist, economists, Political philosophy, political philosophers, and other Intelligentsia, intellectuals who share a classical liberal outlook. It is hea ...

Athabasca Oil Sands

In a 2013 address to the Canadian Association of Lifelong Learners, Peter McKenzie-Brown of the Petroleum History Society listed industrialist J. Howard Pew as one of the six visionaries who built the

oil sands Oil sands are a type of unconventional petroleum deposit. They are either loose sands, or partially consolidated sandstone containing a naturally occurring mixture of sand, clay, and water, soaked with bitumen (a dense and extremely viscous ...

, along with chemist Karl Clark; Premier Ernest Manning; US corporate executive Frank Spragins; Premier Peter Lougheed; and Suncor's former chairman and CEO Rick George. With Pew's support, in 1962 Sun Oil's majority-owned subsidiary,

Great Canadian Oil Sands Great Canadian Oil Sands Limited was a Canadian heavy oil company that existed between 1953 and 1979. In 1962, GCOS received a permit from the Alberta government to build a 31,500 barrels-per-day synthetic crude plant in the Athabasca oil sands. T ...

(GCOS), filed an application for a commercial oil sands project in Canada – the first ever constructed. In 1967, Pew told his audience at opening ceremonies for the Great Canadian Oil Sands plant that "No nation can long be secure in this atomic age unless it be amply supplied with petroleum... It is the considered opinion of our group that if the North American continent is to produce the oil to meet its requirements in the years ahead, oil from the Athabasca area must of necessity play an important role." Today, GCOS is known as the

Suncor Suncor Energy Inc. () is a Canadian integrated energy company based in Calgary, Alberta. It specializes in production of synthetic crude from oil sands. In the 2020 Forbes Global 2000, Suncor Energy was ranked as the 48th-largest public compan ...

oilsands plant. He was awarded the Vermilye Medal in 1950.

Personal life

Pew married Helen Jennings Thompson. She died in 1963. They had a son, George T. Pew, and two daughters. J. Howard Pew died in

Ardmore, Pennsylvania Ardmore is an Unincorporated area#United States, unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) spanning the border between Delaware County, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, Montgomery counties in the U.S. ...

, on November 27, 1971.J. Howard Pew of Sun Oil Dies; Served as President for 35 Years
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Philanthropy

With his siblings, Pew was a co-founder of

The Pew Charitable Trusts The Pew Charitable Trusts is an independent non-profit, non-governmental organization (NGO), founded in 1948. Pew's stated mission is to serve the public interest by "improving public policy, informing the public, and invigorating civic life". ...

. J. Howard Pew also donated the funds for the J. Howard Pew Freedom Trust in 1957. Pew provided early funding to support Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Massachusetts, working closely with

Billy Graham William Franklin Graham Jr. (; November 7, 1918 – February 21, 2018) was an American Evangelism, evangelist, ordained Southern Baptist minister, and Civil rights movement, civil rights advocate, whose broadcasts and world tours featuring liv ...

and

Harold Ockenga Harold John Ockenga (June 6, 1905 – February 8, 1985) was a leading figure of mid-20th-century American Evangelicalism, part of the reform movement known as "Neo-Evangelicalism". A Congregational minister, Ockenga served for many years as ...

. Pew also donated to various other organizations, including the

Foundation for Economic Education The Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) is an American Conservatism in the United States, conservative, Libertarianism in the United States, libertarian economics, economic think tank. Founded in 1946 in New York City, FEE is now headquartere ...

American Liberty League The American Liberty League was an American political organization formed in 1934. Its membership consisted primarily of wealthy business elites and prominent political figures, who were for the most part conservatives opposed to the New Deal of P ...

, James W. Fifield Jr.'s Spiritual Mobilitzation religious-political organization, and Barry Goldwater presidential campaign, 1964. Pew also made a one-time $1000 gift to the

Liberty Lobby Liberty Lobby was a far-right think tank and lobby group founded in 1958 by Willis Carto. Carto was known for his promotion of antisemitic conspiracy theories, white nationalism, and Holocaust denial. The organization produced a daily five-min ...

. Although Pew denied being a member of the John Birch Society, he was listed a member of the editorial advisory board of the group's publication, American Opinion, and as a stockholder of Robert Welch, Inc., the group's publishing arm.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pew, J. Howard American businesspeople in the oil industry 1882 births 1971 deaths People from Bradford, Pennsylvania Grove City College alumni Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni Sunoco LP people American anti-communists American company founders American segregationists Christian nationalists Pennsylvania Republicans Presbyterians from Pennsylvania Philanthropists from Pennsylvania 20th-century American philanthropists The Pew Charitable Trusts people