When Bert McCormack ’60 came back from a year in Korea with the U.S. Marines, he married his high school sweetheart, Mary, and enrolled at USC’s business school on the G.I. bill. The young couple had $500 in the bank.
While taking classes, McCormack worked nights until 2 a.m. at a Shell service station a block from MacArthur Park. Their daughter was born when he was a junior, and he still graduated with a business degree in four and a half years.
Opportunity Pulls in for a Fill-Up
When he was a senior, the Shell district manager drove in to fill his tank. He was impressed with McCormack's service, and when he learned that the young man was a business student at 'SC, he offered to interview him for a spot in Shell's marketing program. McCormack took him up on the opportunity, and scheduled an interview.
After the interview, he was offered the job on the spot, contingent on finishing his degree. Upon graduation, Shell's personnel manager asked the young father if he wanted to take a couple of weeks off.
"No!" McCormack recalls telling him. "I want to start work tomorrow."
“USC trained me in industry and business, and so I wanted to help somebody out that is in the same kind of boat I was. Without my USC degree, I probably wouldn't have got that job with Shell."— Bert McCormack '60
Now, after a successful 41-year career in the oil industry, a 65-year marriage, two children and seven grandchildren, the octogenarian has decided to leave $3 million of his estate to the USC Marshall School of Business, specifically for a scholarship, with priority going to a married student.
“USC trained me in industry and business, and so I wanted to help somebody out that is in the same kind of boat I was,” McCormack said from the couple’s home in Montecito, Calif. “Without my USC degree, I probably wouldn’t have got that job with Shell.”
Shell Oil and McCormix Corporation
McCormack spent 12 years with Shell. After six months in the marketing program, he began his career as a dealer sales representative for Shell’s first district, Los Angeles and Watts, overseeing 28 service stations. Then he was moved to the larger district of Bell Gardens, Huntington and Downey.
He climbed the ladder in Southern California, and was ultimately tapped to be the first sales supervisor in new market entry into Pennsylvania and Southern New Jersey, upper Delaware and upper Maryland, where he was tasked with establishing the entire territory from direct sales to retail dealers, commercial and industrial accounts.
After three successful years on the East Coast with Shell, the McCormacks were offered the opportunity to join an independent oil jobber partnership in Santa Barbara with Robert Bell. Three years later, McCormack bought out his partner and took ownership of the McCormix Corp. outright. When he sold the company 29 years later he’d grown annual sales from $600K to $13 million.
The couple settled in Montecito, Santa Barbara County.
A Famous Customer and Neighbor
McCormack has many stories from over the years. He met former California Governor and then U.S. President Ronald Reagan, who owned a ranch in Santa Barbara, on three occasions. “He became a good customer of mine, and we supplied fuel to his ranch,” McCormack said.
“While he was president, my wife and I were honored to meet him at the steps of Air Force One when he was going back to Washington,” McCormack said. “During the oil shortage, Reagan wanted to know if he’d have any trouble getting gas. I told him he’d be the last one I cut off!”
His love of flying—he bought a Bonanza A36 hp 350 six-seater aircraft in 1981—made for other memorable experiences with Reagan. During Reagan’s presidency, McCormack was asked by the Western White House to fly to the Rutherford Winery in Northern California to bring back cases of wine for all of Reagan’s presidential visits to his ranch.
McCormack said all of his experiences bring him back to those early years at USC. “The way I see it, it is all tied together from my getting a USC degree,” McCormack said. “That’s why I’d like to help somebody else.”
