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construction, especially reinforcing bars, or “rebar.” Many
of these companies were “mom and pop” outfits operating
at tight profit margins, ill-matched with corporate giants like
U.S. Steel, which produced the metal itself in its great eastern
mills. Not surprisingly, the failure rate was particularly high for
companies in the metals service sector.
LUCK OF THE IRISH
Out of failure often comes opportunity in the hands of the
right entrepreneur, particularly one with plenty of business
acumen and more than a little luck. Thomas Neilan was such
a man. Born on May 26, 1887, to poor Irish immigrants Martin
and Mary Neilan, Thomas had risen from humble beginnings
in San Francisco’s Irish Alley, working first as an office clerk
and then a traveling salesman. Tall and slender with a high
forehead, he had hazel eyes framed by thick glasses; the U.S.
government had accordingly declared him physically unfit for
military service during World War I due to poor eyesight. His
wife Mae was twelve years his junior.
By the 1920s, Neilan was the California sales represen-
tative for Powell Valve Company, selling valves, pressure
regulators, and other equipment used in the state’s burgeon-
ing oil industry. He was good at his job because he satisfied
his customers and was always ready with a joke. “He could
talk to anybody,” one acquaintance recalled. “He could talk to
the homeless as well as the president of the United States and
he was a straight shooter. As such, he was well respected.”
Powell Valve was headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio. Inevita-
bly, Neilan became convinced that if he could manufacture
products in the West and cut transportation costs, he could
pass on savings to his customers and keep some for himself.
Ambitious by nature, he announced to his family, “Damn it, I
want to start something here.”
Many details of Neilan’s early business career are lost, but
it is evident that he got around and knew how to seize an
opportunity. By 1922, while still working for Powell, Neilan
was promoting his own new product—a “packer and air lift”
for use in oil well pumps. By the following March, he had
established the Neilan Corporation, based in Houston, Texas,
to manufacture it. Within a few years, the firm had moved
to California and gone into the production of regulators as
well as other fluid valves outfitted for pumps and engines
employed in industries beyond the oil fields. In 1929, Neilan
Corporation was purchased by a Boston-based firm called the
Mason Regulator Company. The timing of the buyout was
fortuitous—the transaction was completed before the stock
market crash and the onset of the Depression. This left Neilan
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Newlyweds Tom and Mae Neilan in the 1920s.