In 1975, when the editors of Fortune chose 19 men for permanent membership in the magazine’s Hall of Fame of Business Leadership, they included George Washington, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison—and Monroe J. Rathbone.

Jack Rathbone served with the Army in World War I, earned a B.S. in chemical engineering from Lehigh in 1921 and joined Standard Oil Co. of Louisiana. In 23 years with the company, he rose to plant manager and president and helped develop the world’s first fluid catalytic cracking unit, dramatically increasing the efficiency of oil refining.

Rathbone later served as president of Esso Standard Oil and as president of Jersey Standard, whose reorganization into Exxon Co., one of the largest in American business history, he helped facilitate. His policy of easing Exxon’s dependence on Middle Eastern oil preceded the Arab oil embargo and was characterized as “perhaps the most important decision in the company's history.”