Robert Orville Anderson

Robert Orville Anderson (April 12, 1917 – December 2, 2007) was an American businessman, art collector, and philanthropist who founded Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO). Anderson also supported several cultural organizations, from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to Harper's Magazine. He died December 2, 2007, at his home in Roswell, New Mexico.

Anderson turned ARCO into the United States' sixth-largest oil company by the time he left in 1986 due to mandatory retirement. He was by then the largest individual landowner in the United States, with ranches and other holdings in Texas and New Mexico amounting to some and a personal fortune estimated at $200 million.

Early life and education Anderson was born in Chicago on April 13, 1917, to Swedish immigrants Hugo A. Anderson and Hilda Nelson. His father was a prominent banker who, Anderson often said, was the first banker in the U.S. "who loaned money on oil in the ground."

Robert attended elementary and high school at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, and then continued his studies at the University of Chicago, majoring in economics and graduating in 1939. Anderson was an intellectual and considered becoming a philosophy professor. He was a member of the Omega chapter of the Psi Upsilon fraternity. During summers, he worked on pipelines in Texas. After graduating, he worked for the American Mineral Spirits Company, a subsidiary of Pure Oil. In 1941, his father helped him and his brothers buy a refinery in New Mexico.

Philanthropy He rescued two struggling publications, The Observer, and Harper's Magazine.

Legacy and honors He was a lifetime trustee of the California Institute of Technology and the University of Chicago. 1974, the University of New Mexico's Robert O. Anderson School of Management was named after him. 1986, the new building at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art was named for him (it is now the Art of Americas Building). 1986, inducted into Junior Achievement's "U.S. Business Hall of Fame".