As the combative head of Dow Chemical, Paul F. Orefice grew and diversified the company while denying Vietnam veterans about defoliants, insisting that the chemical dioxin was harmless. Oversaw the manufacture of silicone breast implants, which are known to be harmful. Leake passed away on December 26th at his home in Paradise Valley, Arizona, at the age of 97.
His family confirmed his death.
Mr. Orefis (pronounced like orifice) speaks in staccato, fast-paced sentences and was often used to hit back at environmentalists, politicians, and journalists in the 1970s and 1980s. Toxic chemicals in the air and water.
Mr. Orefice overcame intense controversy during his 17 years of leadership, which included positions such as president, chief executive officer, and chairman.
His public relations instincts were for confrontation, not reconciliation. He had a strong aversion to what he perceived as government interference in business, which he attributed to his upbringing in Italy under Mussolini.
In 1987, he told the New York Times, “I've seen what overgovernance can do. I was born under a fascist dictatorship, and my father was imprisoned by that dictatorship.” spoke.
Mr. Orefice took over the helm of Dow USA in 1975, when the company's public image suffered from 1960s campus protests that denigrated the company as the maker of the incendiary napalm bomb, which was widely used in Vietnam. It was dirty.
When Dow withdrew from apartheid South Africa in 1987 under pressure from shareholders, Orefice said: I think we should have stayed and fought. ”
In 1977, when Jane Fonda ripped Dow apart in a speech at Central Michigan University, near Dow's headquarters in Midland, Michigan, Mr. Orefice canceled the company's donation to the school. He sent a letter to the chairman saying he could not support Mr. Fonda's “poison against free enterprise.”
Instead, Mr. Orefice financed the campaigns of anti-regulation politicians. He then sued the Environmental Protection Agency for conducting aerial surveillance of Dow's vast Midland plant when Dow refused to allow inspection.
The case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled against the company in 1986, which at the time was the second largest chemical manufacturer in the United States after DuPont. (The two companies merged in 2017 and were subsequently split into three companies.)
In 1983, Congressman James H. Scheier, D-New York, authorized Dow to edit an EPA report on the leak of dioxin, one of the most toxic substances in history, from its Midland plant into the Tittabawassee and Saginaw rivers. revealed that it had been done. and Saginaw Bay.
Regional EPA officials told Congress that their superiors in the Reagan administration ordered the changes to comply with Dow's demands. Orefice appeared on NBC's “Today” show and offered his full layoff.
“There is absolutely no evidence that dioxins cause any harm to humans, other than causing something called chloracne,” he said. “It's a rash.”
His statement dismissed evidence that dioxins are extremely dangerous to laboratory animals and have been linked in some studies to rare soft tissue cancers in humans.
Herbert Dow Doan, one of Dow's former presidents and the grandson of Dow's founder, told Provoke Media in 1990 that Orefice's style was tweaked to appease critics. He said it was not. “The reason is half ego and half pride,” he says. “Paul has a tendency to push his claims to the point where some people call him arrogant.”
There is no doubt that Orefice's strength of will helped boost Dow's business, which until the 1970s was overly dependent on basic chemicals such as chlorine. When low-cost petrochemicals flooded global markets in the early 1980s, he aggressively reorganized Dow by diversifying into consumer products such as shampoo and Fantastic cleaning fluid and expanding into overseas markets. In 1987, Dow posted a record profit of $1.3 billion (about $3.5 billion in today's currency).
At the same time, a class action lawsuit against Dow and other defoliant manufacturers on behalf of 20,000 Vietnam veterans and their families further tarnished the company's image. The lawsuit, filed in 1979, accused dioxin in Agent Orange of causing cancer in veterans and genetic abnormalities in their children.
Dow maintained that it manufactured Agent Orange at the government's request and was not responsible for how it was used. However, in 1984, the company and other manufacturers of Agent Orange denied liability and settled the lawsuit for $180 million, with the proceeds going to veterans and their families.
In another controversy, Dow Corning, a joint venture between Dow Chemical and Corning, released a document in February 1992 stating that silicone gel could leak from breast implants manufactured by the company in 1971. He revealed what he had known since then.
Tens of thousands of women had sued the company alleging that the implants caused them to develop breast cancer or autoimmune diseases. Dow Corning agreed to a $3.2 billion settlement after being forced to file for bankruptcy protection.
In 1999, an independent study by a division of the National Academy of Sciences concluded that silicone implants do not cause serious disease.
Paul Fausto Orefice was born on November 29, 1927 in Venice. His parents, Max and Elena (Friedenberg) Orefice, moved their family to Ecuador in 1940, when Mussolini declared war on Britain and France. Paul came to the United States in 1945 and entered Purdue University with less than 50 words of English.
He graduated in 1949 with a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering, became naturalized, served in the Army for two years, and then went to work for Dow in 1953.
“When I came into Midland, Michigan, this was 'WASP' country, and I was a 'W' but not an 'ASP,'” he told The Washington Post in 1986. I combed my hair straight, but it wasn't finished yet. ”
Mr. Orefis represented Dow in Switzerland, Italy, Brazil, and Spain, and in 1969 was recalled to the company's Midland headquarters and appointed vice president of finance. He became president of Dow Chemical USA in 1975 and was promoted to president and chief executive officer of parent company Dow Chemical Company in 1978. In 1986, the position of Chairman was added.
To the surprise of many observers, Dow poured millions of dollars into a public relations campaign in the mid-1980s to improve its image, including a new slogan: “At Dow, we make great things happen.”
Under company rules, Mr. Orefice resigned as president and chief executive officer in 1987, when he turned 60, and retired as chairman in 1992.
He is survived by his wife of 29 years, Jo Ann Pepper Orefice; his children, Laura Jennison and Andy Orefice; six grandchildren; and one great-grandchild.
After retiring, Orefice pursued his passion for Thoroughbred racehorses, investing in Kentucky Derby runners and spending summers at his home in Saratoga Springs, New York. He was also the partner of Preakness Stakes winner Summer Squall and Belmont Stakes winner Palace Maris.
In 2006, he published a memoir about his rise from being an immigrant with little English to becoming a corporate giant. He titled the song “Only in America.”
