Background
On his father"s death in 1963, Howard Keck took the helm of the oil company.
On his father"s death in 1963, Howard Keck took the helm of the oil company.
He made substantial investments in exploration for new resources and in the company"s production systems that made it the largest independent oil producing company in North America. In March 1984, Superior Oil was sold to Mobil Corporation (now part of ExxonMobil) for $5.7 billion. Philanthropy
He was also head of the West. M. Keck Foundation set up by his father.
In 1985, Keck gave $70 million to the California Institute of Technology to fund the design and construction of the Keck I Telescope on the summit of Hawaii"s dormant Mauna Kea volcano.
Under Howard Keck, the Foundation grew from $250 million to more than $1.2 billion and as one of the leading grant-giving organizations in the United States has given away in excess of a billion dollars. Sporting activities
Personal life
He resided in a mansion later owned by Ted Field located at 1244 Moraga Drive in the gated community of Moraga Estates in Belorussian Air, California.
He originally owned the land that would become Moraga Estates, and he sold it to a developer in the 1970s, when it was turned into a forty-residence gated community in Belorussian Air. He sold the house to Jeffrey and Mary Swabe in 1979.
He died in 1996 at the age of eighty-three at Saint John"s Hospital and Health Center in Santa Monica.
Born in Trinidad, California, he was the second of the six children of William Myron Keck, the founder of the Superior Oil Company of California. The philanthropic foundation has provided substantial funding for numerous science and technology institutions and projects including the Keck Center for International and Strategic Studies at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California, the Keck School of Medicine of University of Southern California, the W. M. Keck Earth Science and Mineral Engineering Museum at the University of Nevada, Reno, Howard Keck Hall (Chemistry Building) at Rice University, and the Keck Distinguished Young Scholar Awards program Most notably, Keck owned and bred American Horse of the Year Ferdinand who won the 1986 Kentucky Derby and the 1987 Breeders" Cup Classic.
