A Dozen Who Shaped the 80s
California’s image as a pacesetter held up fairly well in the 1980s in the world of business and economics. Californians were a force for dramatic change.
Some achieved change on a grand scale--inspiring a revolution in economic policy or transforming corporate finance. Some of the change may seem minor, but it altered our daily routines and our life styles. Some business people built firms that are monuments to America’s spirit of enterprise; others brought companies to ruin and became symbols of corporate recklessness.
Here is a sampling of California residents who gave American business a 1980s makeover--making it better, or worse, or just more fun.
ROBERT O. ANDERSON
Blame Robert O. Anderson and his marketing team if you ever get a flat tire and can’t find a gas station with a mechanic--only an all-night convenience store.
Anderson was chairman of Atlantic Richfield Co. when it revolutionized the retailing of gasoline early in the 1980s in ways that still ripple through the industry.
Before that, the Chicago native and one-time wildcatter forged a tiny independent refining company into Arco, the world’s 15th-largest oil company. He became a land baron, adviser to presidents and a patron of the arts, and in the 1970s played a key role in building the Alaska pipeline and opening up oil production on the North Slope.
In the early 1980s, Arco marketing executives George Babikian and James Morrison proposed revamping California’s Arco stations--dropping credit cards, slashing prices, eliminating service and emphasizing high volume and turnover of customers.
Station profits would be boosted by adding convenience stores. And Arco would pull out of unprofitable East Coast markets, consolidating in one region, the West Coast.
Anderson gave his blessing to the changes. The result: Arco undercut the prices of its competitors, especially independents, and surged to the top of California’s hotly competitive gasoline retailing market.
Arco’s success caught the industry’s attention. The full-service gas station became a rarity, such an item of nostalgia that the movie “Back to the Future” could make a joke of it.
Anderson left Arco in 1986 and now heads Los Angeles-based Pauley Petroleum.
