Boots Adams

Boots Adams first entered the executive tier in 1932. Phillips Petroleum Company's founding president, Frank Phillips, appointed Adams as his assistant. He was promoted despite opposition from executive staff, who considered Boots and Phillips to be an odd team. Frank Phillips was resistant to incorporating Adams' ideas.[11] Phillips instructed Adams: "I'm going to object to everything you do, but you go ahead and do it anyway."

Adams reconstituted the company's amateur basketball team. Phillips had stopped sponsoring it after the 1929–30 season, because of the great depression. Adams personally recruited Joe Fortenberry and Jack Ragland; both of them were Olympians from 1936. He teamed them with Chuck Hyatt, Tom Pickell, Jay Wallenstrom, and Bud Browning. Lastly, he recruited local favorites, Ray Ebling and Dave Perkins to complete the 1937 team.

The Phillips 66ers ended the season in first place. The team was favored to win the AAU tournament as well. Instead, Denver won the championship, 43–38, in Bartlesville. Columnist Chet Nelson called the game: "the greatest game Rocky Mountain fans ever witnessed."[12] In 1958, Boots Adams was inducted into the Helms Foundation Amateur Basketball Hall of Fame.[13]

According to Reference for Business, Phillips and Adams "often disagreed as to how the company should be run."[11][14] Nevertheless, Adams was able to secure Frank Phillips' confidence, and the authority to move his ideas forward.[15][16]

At the 1938 stockholders and board of directors annual meeting, company President Frank Phillips announced his plans to retire. He culminated his announcement saying he wanted K.S. Adams, "the fast-talking young man from Kansas with the big ideas, [to] be elected as the new president of Phillips Petroleum Company". The directors subsequently returned a unanimous vote in support of Phillips' recommendation.[10]

Boots Adams wanted to diversify the company into emerging oil-related industries. After Adams became president of Phillips Petroleum, the company increased its acquisition of natural gas mining rights. In 1938, natural gas was burnt off at the wellhead as a waste product of oil exploration and the mining rights were cheap.[11] The increased share of natural gas mining reserves increased Phillips' profit when the commodity's value more than doubled by the end of World War II.[9]

Adams supported a start-up venture called Pace Setter as well. He purchased a Pace Setter home and advocated for the concept. They sold modern-style homes that used a wide range of natural gas appliances. Adams knew of the existing profit potential as the use of natural gas increased. By 1955, the Phillips company had a "commanding share" of natural gas reserves, 13.3 trillion cubic feet worth approximately US$931,000,000 (equivalent to $10,170,452,174 in 2022).[11] Dividends increased, satisfying stockholders, and workers benefited with wage increases commensurate with the company's bottom line.

Adams employed graduates of a variety of scientific disciplines. He advocated that research and technical expertise was needed for companies to compete in the emerging technological society. One of the newly hired professionals was Jack Graves, a geologist from the University of Oklahoma. Adams tasked Graves to evaluate an oil formation known locally as the Mississippi Chat. The evaluation resulted in a significant new discovery of oil. Phillips continued using the study over the following three years – striking a lot of new oil as a direct result.[17]

Adams also diversified the company into the petrochemical industry, creating an additional revenue stream. Newly hired chemical engineers were used to research synthetic polymers (specifically petroleum-based polymers).[18] He noticed the growth of companies like DuPont and Dow,[19] who were doing well based on the economic value of patents. In particular, Adams wanted Phillips to be involved in developing synthetic rubber.[20]

With significant advancements in place, it was already possible to produce a material similar to rubber. It was however, inferior in quality, and cost-prohibitive to produce. Adams was concerned because two processes showed an equal potential to emerge as the preferred manner of production. One depended on distilling an additive for reactivity, while the other used a petroleum-based reagent.[21] Adams was hopeful that rubber would come to be polymerized by petrochemical means.[20]

At the beginning of the US involvement in World War II, the supply of natural rubber from Southeast Asia was abruptly cut off. The government knew of the strategic importance of rubber and had instituted the Rubber Reserve Company (RRC) to stockpile reserves of rubber to mitigate the consequences of being cut off from supplies. But the RRC had only one million tons of rubber in reserve, while the military consumed about 600,000 tons annually. Victory would depend on a massive influx of synthetic rubber. The program's success would be measured by tonnage alone. Either sufficient quantities would be produced, giving the Allies a fighting chance or demand would not be satisfied, guaranteeing an inability to prevail.

Boots Adams joined the consortium, dedicating the resources of Phillips Petroleum Company to the effort dubbed GR-S (Government Rubber-Styrene).[19] The program's success[22] was an achievement of high magnitude for the entire group of participants. On August 29, 1998, the GR-S, (also called the U.S. Synthetic Rubber Program), was officially labeled as a National Historic Chemical Landmark.[23] Its records are stored in the archives of the University of Akron in Akron, Ohio.

The market for synthetic rubber grew to become a US$60,000,000,000 (equivalent to $105,401,518,178 in 2022) a year industry by the turn of the century. And Phillips, now ConocoPhillips, retained its share of that market.[21][23][24]

In 1948, Adams began spinning off assets from Phillips' diversification. He formed subsidiaries while retaining a controlling interest in the company and a share of any profits realized. The first company formed was the Phillips Chemical Company. In 1951, it secured lucrative patents for its discovery of polyethylene and further development of it into high-density polyethylene resin (HDPE). The first tangible product derived from the patents was a durable HDPE polyolefin plastic marketed as Marlex. Marlex was the material Wham-O contracted for use to produce its Hula Hoop,[25] a 1950s toy that sold over 25 million units in its first four months on the market.[26] The chemical subsidiary maintained its viability and continues returning profits to its parent company from Bartlesville. As of 2014, having merged with Chevron in 2000, Chevron Phillips Chemical Company operates as a 50-50 venture; splitting costs and profit shares equally. The new entity tossed a coin in its boardroom to settle on the company's name with Chevron winning the toss and electing to have their name appear first.[27]

In 1949, Adams decided to consolidate the company's in house operations under one roof. The operations at that time were scattered across 38 different facilities. Adams also wanted the company's research laboratories to be fully modernized, to support the profits being generated from research and development. He contracted the architectural firm of Neville and Sharp of Kansas City, Missouri to build a 12-story, 457,000 square feet multipurpose headquarters. It occupied an entire city block in Bartlesville[28] and was named the Adams building. The town also renamed Seventh Street, Adams Street,[29] and in 1962, constructed the Adams Municipal Golf Course in his name.[30] As of 2014, all three namesakes continue to bear Adams' name.