John Hall

Early life and education Hall was born in Dallas, Texas, the son of John "Big John" Hall and Agnes Sanders Hall.

By 1935, the family had returned to Tennessee, eventually settling in Knoxville, where the young John attended public schools. He earned a degree in chemical engineering from Vanderbilt in 1955.

Career After graduating from Vanderbilt, where he had participated in the Reserve Officer Training Corps, Hall served as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army. Hall had joined Eastern States Standard Oil (Esso, now Exxon) as a chemical engineer in 1955.

Hall became executive assistant to company Founder and Chairman Paul Blazer in 1965. Two years later, he was elected to Ashland Oil's board of directors. By 1971, the company had moved into specialty chemicals production and chemical distribution, and Hall was named president of the Ashland Chemical Company. He was elected executive vice president of Ashland Oil, Inc. in 1974, vice chairman of the board and chief operating office in 1979, and chairman and chief executive officer in September, 1981.

By that time, Ashland had developed a diverse business portfolio which included petroleum refining and marketing; chemicals; crude oil exploration and production; coal mining; road construction, heavy equipment manufacturing, and insurance marketing. Most of that portfolio was related to Ashland's core refining and marketing business. Seeking other revenue streams, Hall's predecessor, Orin E. Atkins, had led the company to acquire U.S. Filter Corporation (heavy manufacturing) and Integon Insurance in 1980. The strategy had not worked: The acquisitions were too far afield from the company's knowledge base and expertise, and the U.S. economy entered a downturn that hurt both the insurance and heavy equipment industries. By 1984 it was clear that action was needed, so Hall introduced a new strategy focusing on core businesses and moved to divest both U.S. Filter and Integon. But analysts praised Hall's back-to-basics strategy, and The Gallagher Report named Hall one of its 10 best corporate chief executives for 1985.

Between 1985 and his retirement in 1996, Hall steered Ashland on a steady course designed to stabilize earnings from refining and marketing, increase profits from related, non-refining businesses and maintain a strong financial position. During Hall's tenure, sales and revenue at Ashland Chemical nearly tripled and it became the largest distributor of chemicals and plastics in North America; SuperAmerica, Ashland's gasoline marketing division, went from 158 stores to more than 600; highway construction operations under APAC, the company's road construction business, almost doubled; and Ashland shares returned 10.5 percent value annually.

On December 22, 1999, John B. McCoy retired from the chairmanship of BankOne. Hall, by then retired from Ashland, was named acting Chairman and Chairman of the Search Committee to replace McCoy. Within a few months, the search committee recommended to the board that Jamie Dimon be hired as BankOne's new chairman and CEO. The Board approved the recommendation unanimously.

Crisis management Hall also guided Ashland through several major crises. In 1983 the Securities and Exchange Commission announced an investigation into questionable payments related to crude oil purchases from Oman made prior to Hall's election as chairman. Ashland's board previously had retained a Pittsburgh law firm to look into the matter, and its report and recommendations, which concluded that no U.S. laws had been broken and that Ashland was not legally required to disclose the report, were presented to the board in October 1981. The findings addressed internal control issues, and the company implemented all recommendations prior to the SEC inquiry. With Hall at the helm, Ashland had cooperated fully with the SEC inquiry. Hall's blueprint also included a tactic to discourage future takeover attempts: The company developed an employee stock ownership plan in which about $300 million in excess pension assets was converted to Ashland shares and allocated to employees over a 10-year period. Thus, employees became the largest shareholder group. On January 2, 1988, a 4-million-gallon storage tank at Ashland's Floreffe, Pa., collapsed, sending diesel fuel gushing over the sides of the surrounding containment dike in waves. The fluid found its way to an open storm sewer drain on adjacent property, and 750,000 gallons of diesel oil poured into the Monongahela River and eventually flowed into the Ohio River, disrupting drinking water in four states. The spill threatened the drinking water of roughly 1 million people in 80 communities in three states. Ashland quickly notified authorities so that containment could commence as soon as possible.

It became clear that the tank was not new but reconstructed of used, 40-year-old steel, that an alternative testing method had been used to confirm its storage worthiness, and that the construction permit had been applied for but received only verbal permission.

Hall went to Pittsburgh, inspected the site of the collapse and discovered that the tank was not up to company standards. He gave a news conference apologizing for the incident, taking responsibility, and promising that Ashland would pay for all cleanup costs and reimburse communities for expenses incurred because of water shortages. "We’re doing everything we know how to to clean up the danger as quickly as possible and restore water supplies," he said. "Ashland is a responsible corporate citizen that is also responsible to community concerns in the areas where our terminals are located."

Ashland quickly opened a Pittsburgh office to handle claims and staffed it with a senior executive. Hall went there regularly along with other senior executives to keep communication channels open. The company provided affected communities with drinking water for weeks, and commissioned the Battelle Memorial Institute of Columbus, Ohio, and ERT, an environmental consulting firm, to examine the long-term environmental impact of the spill. Battelle also was engaged to conduct an independent investigation into the collapse. Battelle's analysis determined the tank failure was caused by a brittle steel fracture – the original steel predated World War II – emanating from a dime-size flaw in the metal near a weld in the bottom round of the tank. Combined with other factors, including the cold temperatures, the flaw caused the tank wall to split in less than a second. In November 1989 Ashland agreed to pay $30 million to settle 20 class-action civil suits filed as a result of the spill. Overall, the spill and its aftermath cost Ashland an estimated $40 million, including $30 million to settle class-action civil lawsuits. Hall chaired both the Blue Grass Community Foundation and the Commonwealth Fund for Kentucky Educational Television. He was chairman of Board of Trustees at Vanderbilt University and served on the Engineering School Committee of Visitors. He is a former member of the Board of Trustees at Transylvania University and served as chairman of the Fund for Transylvania; the school also has a softball field named for Hall and his wife, Donna. He is a former member of the board of directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. In 2010, he was inducted into the Kentucky Historical Society Foundation's Abraham Lincoln Society. He is past chairman and counselor-for-life of The Conference Board and a former member of the board of directors of New American Schools Development Corporation. Hall served as Kentucky state chairman for the United States Olympic Committee from 1991 to 1996 and as chairman of the Corporate Fund for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. from 1996 to 1997. He is on the board of directors of the Conservancy of Southwest Florida and is on the Chairman's Advisory Council of the Everglades Foundation.

He also endowed a chair in breast cancer research in his wife's name, the Donna S. Hall Chair in Breast Cancer Research, at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center. Hall was deeply involved in education improvement efforts spearheaded by the national Business Roundtable, of which he was a member. Under the aegis of the BRT, he co-founded The Partnership for Kentucky School Reform, which rallied corporate support for changes in primary education. He also led the West Virginia Business and Education Alliance, the BRT initiative in the Mountain State.

Recognition Hall has received numerous awards. These plaudits date from 1983 when he received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from Vanderbilt University. In 1985, he received the Tennessee Technology Foundation Honor Award. Petroleum Management magazine named him one of the 10 most influential individuals in the oil and gas industry in 1985. He also received a Significant Sig award from Sigma Chi fraternity in 1985. The following year, The Ohio State University bestowed him with the College of Engineering award for business and technological achievement. The American Institute of Chemical Engineers honored him in 1987 with the Fuels and Petrochemical Division Award for management of petroleum operations. In 1988, the year of the Pittsburgh oil spill, he was named Crisis Manager of the Year by Carnegie Mellon University. He earned honorary membership in the Kentucky Association of School Administrators in 1990 and became a trustee of the Committee for Economic Development, a national non-profit organization in 1991. He and his wife, Donna, were honored as Outstanding Volunteer Fund-Raisers in 1993 by the Lexington, Ky., Chapter of the National Society of Fund-Raising Executives. Octane Week magazine chose him as Executive of the Year in 1994. He was inducted into the Marshall University Business Hall of Fame in 1995 and was chosen to serve on the Kentucky Governor's Special Advisory Committee on Education in 1996. In 1999, Hall received the Petrochemical Heritage Award.

He was elected to the Academic All-America Hall of Fame in 2001. In 2004 he received Leadership Kentucky's Flame of Excellence Award. In 2007, the Kentucky Legislature awarded Hall the Vic Hellard Jr. Award. Also in 2007, ODX honored him with an Outstanding Director award. He was chosen for Vanderbilt's Inaugural Athletics Hall of Fame class in 2008. In 2009 the Happy Chandler Scholarship Foundation presented Hall with its Kentuckian Award for outstanding services to the commonwealth. In 2010 he was named to the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame as a Lifetime Achievement Inductee.

Hall's commitment to corporate citizenship brought honors to his company as well. In 1988, Ashland was named Business Citizen of the Year by the University of Kentucky chapter of Beta Gamma Sigma in recognition of Ashland's support for education, a trademark of Hall's leadership. That year Ashland also received the President's Citation for Private Sector Initiatives for the company's dropout prevention efforts.