Leon Hess

Leon Hess (March 14, 1914 – May 7, 1999) was an American businessman, the founder of the Hess Corporation and owner of the New York Jets. Hess built an oil terminal in New Jersey after the Great Depression, building his first refinery in the late 1950s. He sold his company, Hess Oil and Chemical, in 1963 and joined a consortium to buy the New York Jets. Hess was responsible for moving the Jets to Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, in 1984.

In 1969, Hess acquired Amerada Petroleum Corporation, one of the largest producers of crude oil in the United States. The acquisition saw Amerada merging with Hess Oil and Chemical to form the Amerada Hess Corporation. Hess was chairman and CEO until 1995. He died at the age of 85 on May 7, 1999. Hess was posthumously inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame in 2011.

Early life Hess was born on March 14, 1914, to a Jewish family in Asbury Park, New Jersey. His parents were Ethel (née Friedman) and Morris Hess, a kosher butcher who had emigrated from Lithuania His initial investment was $250,000. 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.

Sports agent Leigh Steinberg once recounted a story about meeting Hess, who related about the "important people I know", showing him a card of the Ayatollah Khomeini. Famously reticent about talking to the press, 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. 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. When the Jets arrived at the airport after the loss in the 1999 AFC Championship Game, Hess was there to greet and thank them. Prior to dying, Hess gave assistant coach/defensive coordinator Bill Belichick a $1 million bonus, which became a sticking point of contention when Belichick was briefly promoted to head coach in 2000.

Personal life and death In 1947, he married Norma Wilentz. Wilentz's father was former Attorney General of New Jersey David T. Wilentz who prosecuted Bruno Richard Hauptmann in the Lindbergh baby kidnapping case.

In April 1999, he broke his hip and was admitted to Lenox Hill Hospital. While still at the hospital, he died on May 7, 1999, from a "blood disease".

In the will of Hess, he stated that the team would be sold and that his executors would hire Goldman, Sachs & Co to manage the Jets' sale, stating, "It is my intent that my interests in the Jets be disposed of unaffected by any desire of family members to participate in the club's future ownership."

Legacy In 2011, Hess was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame. In 2014, the New York Jets selected Hess, along with former wide receiver Wayne Chrebet, to be the year's inductees into its Ring of Honor.

The Leon Hess Business School at Monmouth University, Leon Hess Comprehensive Secondary School in Saint Lucia, and the Leon and Norma Hess Center for Science and Medicine of the Mount Sinai Health System in New York City were named for him.