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Henry Logan Brandon
early years

Henry Logan (Hank) Brandon was born in Woodlawn, near Clarksville, TN on April 22, 1923. He was the 2nd child of Hugh Benjamin and Carrie Watson-Brandon. He had an older brother, Bill, and a younger sister, Elizabeth. He began his formal education at the Leeville Elementary School on the outskirts of Lebanon, TN in 1929. His family moved often as his father was a Methodist minister; schools attended are too numerous to mention. He graduated from Prospect High School in Prospect, TN, near Pulaski, in about 1939.

world war II

He attended Martin Junior College in Martin, TN, and in 1941, passed the US Navy aviation test and became a cadet in the Naval Air Corps. He served at Quonset Point before being assigned as a Naval Fighter pilot to the USS Randolph for the invasion of Japan. He piloted an F4U Corsair in the Pacific theatre between 1943 and 1945. He was scheduled to participate in the initial stages of Operation Downfall, which was the overall Allied plan for the invasion of Japan near the end of World War II. The operation was cancelled when Japan surrendered following the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the Soviet Union's declaration of war against Japan.

After the war, he served in the Naval Aviation reserve, and is believed to be one of the few US Navy pilots ever to have  looped the Golden Gate Bridge.

marriage and college years

After his discharge from the Navy he attended Southern Methodist University, where he earned a Bachelor's in Business Administration in 1948. In the fall of 1948 he moved to Nashville, Tennessee where he entered Vanderbilt Law School. While attending Vanderbilt he met his future wife, Nelle Bizzle, who was working for the Nashville Tennesseean as a city news reporter. They married in January of 1950. Their first child, a daughter named Darryl, was born in January of 1951. Hank graduated from Vanderbilt in mid-1951. He was recruited by Chevron Oil Company while still in law school and began working for Chevron in June of 1951 in Denver, Colorado where he moved with his wife and daughter. After six months, in February of 1952, the family moved to Bismark, North Dakota, where they remained for 31/2 years.

international business career with union oil

-guatemala

-cuba -middle east

In May of 1954 they relocated to New Orleans until October of 1954, when Hank was recruited by Union Oil Company. He was sent to Los Angeles for training by Union for a managerial position. After one month of training, Hank was sent to Bakersfield where the family thought it would be staying for a while. By July of 1955, however, the family found itself on the move again, this time back to Los Angeles, where they stayed from July of 1955 until February of 1956. Hank had been hired by Union to represent them in Havana, Cuba. He went there to open an office on Calle "N" in the spring of 1956 while his wife and daughter waited in Fort Lauderdale for a second daughter, Kim, to be born. Upon her birth the family reunited in Havana. They lived there for 21/2 years. On Halloween of 1959, they were again on the move, this time to Guatemala City where Hank served as General Manager of Operations for Union. While in Guatemala, the Brandons and  five       other families founded the Mayan School, one of the top bilingual schools in the city of Guatemala today. After 31/2 years in Guatemala, and the birth of a son, Doug, in March of 1962, the family was tranferred to Indonesia for one year. Hank chose to relocate the family to Pasadena, California, while he worked in Jakarta for a month at a time. He traveled to Bangkok, Thailand, West Africa, and the Middle East during this time. Around this time he also wrote the Production Sharing Contract, which is now a standard contract in the oil business and in use world-wide. For the next few years, until about 1968, Hank traveled extensively for Union all over the world. He contracted hepatitis in either Indonesia or Africa in the spring of 1967 after which he was made a Vice President of the International Division of Union. In this capacity he conducted negotiations with the Sheik of Ras-al-Khaimah, Sheik Saqr, and was made Sheik of Tum Island (off of the coast of Africa) in about 1969. Hank held the position of Vice President at Union until his retirement in 1978.

retirement and legacy

After retirement from Union, Hank decided to study for the California Bar Exam, which he took, and passed half of. He was hired by the World Bank as a consultant, where he negotiated with oil companies on behalf of the World Bank. He then formed some small companies to reclaim oil wells in the San Fernando Valley. As the price of oil continued declining, these companies were closed for obvious reasons. He served as President of the Petroleum Club in Los Angeles for one year, around the time of his retirement from Union. He lived with his wife in Pasadena, where they enjoyed golfing, until his death in 1997.

further reading--Black Bonanza, Frank J. Taylor and Earl M. Welty (How an Oil Hunt Grew into the Union Oil Company of California)--before dad's time external links