Irene Wischer: Pioneer in the Oil Industry and Advocate for Women (1915–2017)

Irene Mae Stimson Katzmark Cox Wischer, oil and gas industry executive, Republican party member, and philanthropist, was born on October 25, 1915, in Page, Nebraska, to Claude Henry Stimson and Helen Christine (Siem) Stimson. She had two siblings who lived to adulthood: a brother named Blaine Nicholas Stimson and a sister named Maxine Elizabeth Gittinger. Her family moved from Nebraska to Texas after her father went broke during the Great Depression. In 1933 Irene Stimson graduated from Harlandale High School in San Antonio. Though she wanted to follow a career as a teacher, due to economic reasons, she had to find an alternative career path. She attended business school at Draughon’s Business College and obtained a degree in 1937.

Irene Stimson married Bruno John Katzmark on June 4, 1939, in Nueces County. Their marriage ended in divorce in 1947 and produced no children. In 1941 Irene Katzmark took a secretarial job at the Henderson Oil Company, an oil firm owned by Frank Henderson and located in San Antonio. Upon Henderson’s death in 1943, a trust was established to manage the firm’s assets. Since all of the trustees lived outside the state of Texas, they relied on Katzmark’s knowledge of the company to keep it running smoothly. New opportunities for advancement presented themselves to her after new owners bought the firm and named her director in 1950. In 1952 she married Lance Milton Cox. By 1953 Irene Cox had risen to the positions of secretary-treasurer of the Henderson Company’s successor firm, known as Panhandle Producing Company, and general secretary of Henderson Trusts and was a partner in the independent San Antonio oil firm of Cox and Compton—remarkable feats for a woman in the male-dominated oil industry of that era. That same year she was elected president of the Association of Desk and Derrick Clubs of North America. On April 30, 1962, her second husband Lance Milton Cox, a retired petroleum engineer, died. The following year the board of directors elected Irene Cox as president and CEO of Panhandle Producing Company. Three years later, on February 5, 1966, she married Earl Henry Wischer and became stepmother to his children, Susie Holton and Steve Wischer.

Irene Wischer established the Paladin Pipeline Company in 1966 and the Pinto Well Servicing Company in 1973 and served as president of both. She was also an officer in the North Star Petroleum Corporation. Together these companies managed oil and gas wells, a gathering system, service equipment, and drilling leases. During her years in the industry, Wischer developed an expertise in contract negotiations and federal regulations. As many of the products sold by her businesses involved interstate commerce, she became very critical of federal regulations of interstate sales of gas and of federal oversight of the oil and gas industry broadly. She spent considerable time lobbying and testifying before Congress on behalf of independent producers like herself. Reflecting on her trajectory in the petroleum and gas sector, Wischer underlined her ambition, communication skills, knowledge of the business, and senses of responsibility and competitiveness as factors propelling her career forward. She acknowledged that no one who worked their way up from the bottom of the industry like she did could have reached her position without those above them taking interest in their career and creating such opportunities for them.

Besides her corporate responsibilities, Wischer was involved in politics, public affairs, and the advancement of women in corporate leadership. She was president of the Texas Federation of Republican Women from 1963 to 1965 and was the Bexar County chair of Women for Nixon in 1968. During Lila Banks Cockrell’s term as mayor pro tem in the city of San Antonio, she tried to appoint Wischer to the city public service board but failed due to male opposition. Afterwards both women worked together setting the goals for the Mayor’s Commission on the Status of Women. Wischer also supported the ratification of the national Equal Rights Amendment. In 1973 she decided to paint all the equipment of the new Pinto Well Servicing Company pink to show that women like her could be leaders in the male-dominated oil industry without forsaking femininity. President Richard Nixon appointed her as a member of the Citizens’ Advisory Council on the Status of Women in August 1969, and she served during his and Gerald Ford’s presidencies. In 1974 Nixon considered her to fill the cabinet post of United States Treasurer, and in 1982 President Ronald Reagan considered her for the position of Deputy Secretary of Energy. President George H. W. Bush appointed her to the National Petroleum Council.

Wischer was a member of numerous professional organizations, including the Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners Association and the Texas Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association. She was also a member on the boards of multiple civic organizations, such as the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce, Trinity University, the University of Texas at San Antonio, the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research (see TEXAS BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE), the San Antonio Medical Foundation, and the Alamo Heights United Methodist Church. She advanced women’s professional opportunities by holding positions as the first woman member of various organizations. These included the Independent Petroleum Association of America’s executive committee, the Southwest Research Institute’s board of trustees, the board of directors at the National Bank of Commerce in San Antonio, and the business advisory council at St. Mary’s University.

In her long career Wischer received several honors. She was named one of Ten Outstanding Republican Women in Texas by the Texas Federation of Republican Women (1971), inducted into the San Antonio Hall of Fame (1984), honored as an Outstanding Citizen by the National Conference of Christians and Jews (1988), selected as Chief Roughneck of the Year by the Lone Star Steel Company in Dallas (1992), named as San Antonio’s Outstanding Philanthropist of the Year (1994), and honored with a plaque placed in the Shenandoah Valley Museum for her instrumental role in its foundation (2005). In 2007 she established the Irene S. Wischer Education Foundation Scholarship that provides college and technical school scholarships. Irene Wischer died that same year, on March 23, at the age of ninety-one. She is buried at Sunset Memorial Park in San Antonio.