Leon Hess
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Leon Hess (13 March 1914 – May 7, 1999) was the founder of the Hess Corporation and the owner of the New York Jets.
Hess was the son of a Russian immigrant who worked as a kosher butcher and an oil delivery man. Leon started his oil company with his father's one-truck oil delivery business in Asbury Park, New Jersey during the Great Depression. "Everybody was broke in those days," Hess said. "I had to pay for the truck before I could deliver the oil." He supplied oil to George Patton's troops during World War II. He married Norma in the 1940s, and had three children: Marlene; Connie; and John B. Hess, who succeeded him as CEO of Amerada Hess Corporation; and seven grandchildren. He acquired Amerada Corporation in 1969 after an ownership battle with Phillips Petroleum. He stepped down as chairman and CEO in 1995. Forbes magazine in 1998 listed his net worth at $720 million.
He was part of a consortium that bought the Jets of the American Football League in 1963, when they were the New York Titans. He eventually bought out his partners: Sonny Werblin and Phil Iselin, in 1977. The Jets played in Shea Stadium in 1964 after four seasons in the Polo Grounds. In 1984 Hess moved the team to Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.
[edit] Death
Hess died at Lenox Hill Hospital of a "blood disease". He had been hospitalized with a broken hip in early April and discharged. But a day later he re-entered the hospital.
[edit] External link
| Preceded by Harry Wismer |
Owners of the New York Jets | Succeeded by Robert Wood Johnson IV |
