Page "Koch Industries" Paragraph 3

In 1925, Fred C. Koch joined MIT classmate Lewis E. Winkler at an engineering firm in Wichita, Kansas, which was renamed the Winkler-Koch Engineering Company.

In 1927 they developed a more efficient thermal cracking process for turning crude oil into gasoline.

This process threatened the competitive advantage of established oil companies, which sued for patent infringement.

Temporarily forced out of business in the United States, they turned to other markets, including the Soviet Union, where Winkler-Koch built 15 cracking units between 1929 and 1932.

During this time, Koch came to despise communism and Joseph Stalin's regime.

In his 1960 book, A Business Man Looks at Communism, Koch wrote that he found the USSR to be " a land of hunger, misery, and terror.

" According to Charles G. Koch, " Virtually every engineer he worked with was purged.