About Gardiner Symonds

The Gardiner Symonds Teaching Laboratory honors the memory of Gardiner Symonds, a Rice University Trustee from 1966-71. The Symonds Laboratory was funded through the proceeds of the Symonds Family Fund, which Mr. Symonds established at Rice in 1967.

Mr. Symonds, who was born in 1903, received a degree in geology from Stanford University and then graduated number one in the very first graduating class from the Harvard Graduate School of Business in 1927. In 1943, he became the founding president of Tennessee Gas Transmission Company, which later became known as Tenneco, a company formed to move gas by pipeline from Texas to the northern and eastern markets of the United States. He served Tenneco as president and chief executive officer until his retirement in 1968, and remained with Tenneco as Chairman of the Board of Directors until his death in 1971.

Mr. Symonds was acknowledged to be the architect and guiding genius behind Tenneco's success. Under Mr. Symonds' leadership, Tenneco extensively diversified its operations into oil, chemicals, packaging, agriculture, land development and shipbuilding. During the first twelve years of its existence, Tenneco amassed a billion dollars in assets, and it became the nation's first industrial corporation to attain more than $3 billion in assets before the 25th year of its existence. At the time of Mr. Symonds' death, Tenneco had more than 250,000 stockholders and close to 60,000 employees.

While Gardiner Symonds was internationally renowned as a business and industrial leader, he and his wife, Margaret Clover Symonds (1905-95), were also involved in many civic and cultural activities. Higher education was a priority for both of them. In addition to serving on the Board of Trustees of Rice University, Mr. Symonds also served as a Trustee for Stanford University and for Smith College, as a Regent for the Texas A & M System, and as a member of the visiting committee at the Harvard Business School. Mrs. Symonds served as a Trustee for her alma mater, Northwestern University. Upon his death, Tenneco paid tribute to Mr. Symonds' memory with the establishment of the Symonds Chair at the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Administration at Rice University. During her lifetime, the conservation laboratory at the Deering Library at Northwestern University was named in Mrs. Symonds' honor.