Fred Koch came back from an African Safari and was "furious" according to son Charles Koch about wanting to purchase two trucker companies according to this Wichita Eagle article. Fred Koch was trying save money for estate taxes and only told Charles to buy one trucking company. However, Charles Koch was in growth mode trying to grow Koch Industries bought both.
Fred Koch set up some very useful estate planning for his sons. He wanted his sons to inherit the stock at a low tax rate so they wouldn't have to force them to sell the company to pay estate taxes. Between 1966 and 1967 Fred Koch set up trusts for each of his sons according to this document. Fred Koch would pass away in 1967 as he was on a hunting trip. Fred did give son Fredrick a lesser share than the rest of the Koch brothers (it is believed Fredrick stole some petty cash). A large part of Koch Industries was owned by the four trusts created. The trusts had each Koch brother as co-trustee of their own trusts in addition to the First National Bank of Wichita. The income generated from the trusts would be paid to charity over a 20 year period and at the ended in 1986. David Koch said in this profile "So for 20 years, I had to give away all that income...and I sort of got into it". This got David Koch into the habit of donating to charity in general. Charles and Elizabeth Koch have also been charitable as well. Between the late 1980's and early 1990's they donated an average of $2 million each year just to Kansas area charities according to this 1994 Wichita Eagle article. Charles Koch has said that the only way the company would go public is if shares were literally offered over his dead body according to this article.
Charles and Liz Koch had two children. Elizabeth graduated from Princeton University with a degree in English literature in 1999 and then went to Syracuse for a Masters in Fine Arts (MFA) degree in 2011. She is now 37 and lives in New York and is in the publishing business. Chase Koch graduated from Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. These days Chase is now 36 and started out in business development and also worked as a vice president of international business for Koch Fertilizer Company. These days he is vice president of Agronomics Services for Koch Industries.
Growing up every Sunday Chase and his sister Elizabeth would have to spend an hour learning about economics from their father Charles Koch. Chase was actually an outstanding tennis player in high school and was even profiled in Sports Illustrated under "Faces In The Crowd" which points out outstanding athletes in the country here. Chase Koch was actually probably one of the best tennis players in the country. Chase went to high school at Wichita Collegiate School in Kansas. Chase also had a great tennis coach as well. Coach Dave Hawkley of Wichita Collegiate School was also excellent helping win 92 state championships in tennis. Chase Koch shared his memories of his coach here. The Charles G. Koch Foundation greatly supported the Wichita Collegiate School between 1986-1997 giving more than $3.3 million.
Chase Koch as a teenager was put to work according to this article. When Chase was only 13 he was did manual labor at a cattle feedlot in western Kansas. Chase in fact lived on the couch with the feedlot manager and was working over 80 hours a week (7 days per week) at a young age. This is no different than Charles, David or Bill Koch who have all talked about doing at a young age. David in his Newsmax profile discussed how he worked on the ranch driving bulldozers, operating hay bailers, in addition to fixing farm equipment and digging ditches as I mentioned in this article.
On November 1, 2010 Chase Koch married Annie Breitenbach (here is her high school picture). Annie graduated from the University of Kansas and now works as an RN in Wichita, Kansas. In 2010, the newly weds purchased 70 acres of land and a house for $3 million in Wichita, Kansas according to this article. They now have a son named Charles Gerard Koch who was baptized in June 2012.
Chase Koch like his parents is also charitably inclined. In 2010, Women's Focus had this story discussing how Koch Industries was getting involved with the Kansas Food Bank (Chase helped out the food bank as a representative of Koch Fertilizer. Koch Industries gave the Kansas Food bank 230,000 pounds of food. I guess Koch Industries does actually want to make sure less fortunate people go hungry.
According to this December 2012 Forbes article Charles Koch claims he has been doing estate planning for "many many years". In addition to this, he says that Koch Industries now has more depth in their leadership than ever before. My bet would be that David Robertson would first take over the company if something ever were to happen to Charles Koch and then possibly Chase could take it over down the road. It should be noted that Charles Koch took over Koch Industries when he was only 31. A fun fact is Charles earned two masters degrees in engineering before he was 24 according to this article.
Charles Koch is a interesting, smart, and a controversial person. He has grown a company from $225 million in revenues to $115 billion. Many people like to bring up the fact that he inherited Koch Industries. However, what they don't realize is that Charles and David put in long hours and worked nearly every day of the week to grow it. There were only one of three outcomes: the company could have gone bankrupt, stayed the same, or grown. The future of Koch Industries should be interesting. Charles Koch said in this article that he wants to work on deals that "move the needle". Charles and David Koch are each worth around $34 billion. This could mean that in the next decade they could easily be worth over $100 billion each. The question will be in the future what will happen to Koch Industries in the future?
