1. Leon Hess was an American businessman, the founder of the Hess Corporation and the owner of the New York Jets.
16 Facts About Leon Hess
1. 2.
Leon Hess sold his company, Hess Oil and Chemical, in 1963 and joined a consortium to buy the New York Jets.
3.
Leon Hess was responsible for moving the Jets to Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, in 1984.
4.
In 1969, Leon Hess acquired Amerada Petroleum Corporation, one of the largest producers of crude oil in the United States.
5.
Leon Hess was posthumously inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame in 2011.
6.
Leon Hess was born on March 14,1914, to a Jewish family in Asbury Park, New Jersey.
7.
Leon Hess worked as a driver for his father's company and, after it went bankrupt in 1933 during the Great Depression, he reorganized the company.
8.
Leon Hess built an oil terminal in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, out of old oil tankers and aggressively underbid his competitors to win Federal oil contracts.
9.
Leon Hess served in World War II, rising to the rank of major, and serving as the fuel supply officer for General George S Patton, where he further developed his logistical expertise.
10.
Leon Hess was chairman and CEO of Amerada Leon Hess until 1995.
11.
In 1963, Hess was part of a consortium that bought the New York Jets which included Sonny Werblin, Philip H Iselin, Townsend B Martin, and Donald C Lillis.
12.
Leon Hess bought out his partners: Werblin in 1968, the heirs of Iselin in 1977, Martin in 1981 and on February 9,1984, he became the sole owner of the club after purchasing the last quarter-share from Helen Dillon, Lillis' daughter.
13.
Sports agent Leigh Steinberg once recounted a story about meeting Leon Hess, who related about the "important people I know", showing him a card of the Ayatollah Khomeini.
14.
Famously reticent about talking to the press, Leon Hess attended just three press conferences as an owner who often shunned publicity to the point where he whispered to journalists to not put it in the paper that he was attending a practice session.
15.
Leon Hess made sure that Dennis Byrd, who suffered a broken neck with partial paralysis on the field, received the final two years of his contract of over $1 million.
16.
In 2011, Leon Hess was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame.