Fred C. Koch

Fred Chase Koch (September 23, 1900 – November 17, 1967) was an American chemical engineer and entrepreneur who founded the oil refinery firm that later became Koch Industries, the second-largest privately-held company in the United States. Fred C. Koch was born in Quanah, Texas, the son of Mattie B. (née Mixson) and a Dutch immigrant, Harry Koch. Harry began working as a printer’s apprentice in Workum, Netherlands. He worked over a year at printers shops in The Hague and in Germany before coming to the U.S. in 1888, and owned the Tribune-Chief newspaper. Fred attended Rice Institute in Houston from 1917 to 1919, and graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1922, where he obtained a degree in Chemical...