John Barnett Hess (born April 5, 1954)"Profile: John Hess"

NNDB The Notable Names Database (NNDB) is an online database of biographical details of over 40,000 people. Soylent Communications, a sole proprietorship that also hosted the now-defunct Rotten.com, describes NNDB as an "intelligence aggregator" of n ...

is the current CEO of

Hess Corporation Hess Corporation (formerly Amerada Hess Corporation) is an American global independent energy company involved in the exploration and production of crude oil and natural gas. It was formed by the merger of Hess Oil and Chemical and Amerada Petrol ...

Biography

John Hess was born in 1954 to a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

family, the son of Norma and

Leon Hess Leon Hess (March 14, 1914 – May 7, 1999) was an American businessman, the founder of the Hess Corporation and the owner of the New York Jets. Hess built an oil terminal in New Jersey after the Great Depression, building his first refinery i ...

. His father was the founder of the

Hess Oil and Chemical Hess Oil and Chemical Corporation was a company founded in the early 1930s by Leon Hess of New Jersey to distribute heating oil. It expanded over the years to include refining and marketing of heating oil and other petroleum products through termi ...

Company which later became the

Amerada Hess Corporation Hess Corporation (formerly Amerada Hess Corporation) is an American global independent energy company involved in the exploration and production of crude oil and natural gas. It was formed by the merger of Hess Oil and Chemical and Amerada Petrol ...

and is now known as the

. His maternal grandfather was the former attorney general David T. Wilentz, who prosecuted Bruno Richard Hauptmann in the

Lindbergh baby kidnapping On March 1, 1932, Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr. (born June 22, 1930), the 20-month-old son of aviators Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, was abducted from his crib in the upper floor of the Lindberghs' home, Highfields, in East Amw ...

case. He has two sisters: Marlene Hess and former

Pennsylvania State Senator The Pennsylvania State Senate is the upper house of the Pennsylvania General Assembly, the Pennsylvania state legislature. The State Senate meets in the State Capitol building in Harrisburg. Senators are elected for four year terms, staggered ever ...

, Constance H. Williams.New York Times: "Leon Hess, Who Built a Major Oil Company and Owned the Jets, Is Dead at 85" By GERALD ESKENAZI
May 08, 1999 He earned his undergraduate degree from

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher lea ...

in 1975 and his MBA from

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a large full-time MBA p ...

in 1977. He married Susan Elizabeth Kessler in 1984. They live at

778 Park Avenue 778 Park Avenue is a luxury residential building located in the Upper East Side Historic District on the north east corner of 73rd Street and Park Avenue. The 18-story English Renaissance apartment house, was designed by Rosario Candela who is w ...

. Hess became chairman and CEO of

in 1995. He stepped down as chairman in May 2013, retaining his position as CEO.

References

Living people 1954 births People from Monmouth County, New Jersey American people of Latvian-Jewish descent American people of Lithuanian-Jewish descent Harvard Business School alumni Hess family 20th-century American businesspeople Harvard College alumni {{US-business-bio-1950s-stub