Aug. 9, 2002, 12:44AM
Black entrepreneur takes top honors only reluctantly
By LAUREN BAYNE
Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle
For Kase L. Lawal, the CEO of a multimillion-dollar oil venture, being in the spotlight never mattered.
With little notice, the Nigerian immigrant to Houston has built Camac Holdings, an international oil exploration, refining and trading company with more than 1,000 employees throughout Africa and the United States.
When his was ranked the largest black-owned business in the country in a Black Enterprise magazine contest, he said his marketing staff entered without asking him.
"I wasn't even part of the process," said Lawal, who kept his firm's revenues secret for many years after its founding in 1986. "I just didn't see a reason to publicize the company."
City Council member Carol Alvarado, who got to know Lawal when he helped with her campaign, said that's typical for him.
"He's very behind the scenes -- he doesn't do things for a lot of fanfare," Alvarado said. "He's so active in the community, yet he doesn't ask for anything in return."
Even though Camac's revenues could have earned it a spot years ago as one of the top black-owned businesses in the country, Lawal dodged requests by Black Enterprise to submit information for five years.
Camac was one of 17 Texas-based companies to make the magazine's top 100. Total Premier Services, an oil and gas drilling company with revenues of $242 million, was the only other Houston firm to make the list, at No. 13.
Qualifying businesses must be at least 51 percent black-owned and operated; they must manufacture or own the products they sell.
The entrepreneur's reticence stems from Camac's nature as a family business, 80 percent of which is owned by Lawal, his wife and three children. The remaining 20 percent is divided among his brothers and sisters.
Lawal describes Camac as being like Conoco but on a smaller scale.
The son of a local politician and a textile trader, Lawal enjoyed his life in Africa but felt a calling from the United States around the time he was ready to go to college.
As a child, growing up in Ibadan, Nigeria, Lawal said he knew one day he would be a businessman, he
just wasn't sure what type of enterprise he would own.
His brothers and sisters left Africa to study in England. His father wanted the same for him, but he chose the United States, saying he wanted to be a part of the civil rights struggle, still developing in the early 1970s.
"My father was absolutely opposed to me coming to America," Lawal said. "He feared for my safety and thought it would be hard for me to adjust to the American way of education."
But Lawal came anyway. He studied at Georgia Tech and later transferred to Texas Southern University, where he earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry. He went on to earn a master's in business from Prairie View A&M.
When Lawal started Camac, it traded agricultural commodities such as sugar, tobacco and rice.
He got into the oil business after a pivotal meeting in 1989. Lawal invited Rilwanu Lukman, currently president of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries conference, to a Rotary Club meeting.
Lukman urged changing Camac's focus from agriculture to oil exploration.
While the encounter showed that Lawal had an excellent contact in oil-rich Nigeria, he was new to the business and had little money to put up. He then met with 19 companies over two years before entering into a partnership with Conoco in 1991.
Conoco put up the money; Camac provided the giant Houston-based oil company with a prospect it needed in Nigeria. Camac owned the rights to the blocks of land in Africa where exploration would take place.
Camac stayed with oil exploration for the next eight years and did well. Lawal said Camac is still in a partnership with Conoco that produces more than 20,000 barrels of oil a day.
No spokesman from Conoco was available for comment Thursday. Camac underwent another fundamental change in 1999, when it moved into oil trading and bought a refinery. Lawal said the company's revenues took off with trading, but Camac still makes most of its money through oil exploration and production.
"There's a difference between income and revenue," Lawal said. "Exploration and production is our biggest source of income; trading is our biggest source of revenue."
In 1999, Camac's revenues were $114.3 million. That number jumped to $571.5 million in 2000 and to $979.5 million in 2001. Lawal expects to break the $1 billion barrier in 2002 and is close already. Only one other black-owned American business has made that mark: snack food, beverage and grocery store conglomerate TLC Beatrice International Holdings, owned by Wall Street financier Reginald F. Lewis.
Lately, Camac is involved in a new kind of project, to move a refinery it bought in Blue Island, Ill., to South Africa.
The parts will be shipped to Cape Province and reassembled into a refiner of 13,000 barrels a day.
The refinery will create social and economic empowerment through jobs, Lawal said.
George Beranek, manager of market analysis at the Petroleum Finance Company, said the move makes good business sense because smaller refiners in the United States face expensive upgrades over the next year to reduce sulfur in the fuel produced, Beranek said.
Regular rounds of environmental upgrades are not of much concern in South Africa.
"If you go somewhere where specifications aren't as stringent, you can still run the equipment," Beranek said.
Lawal admits the regulations are not as stiff but said he will still uphold the standards as he would in this country.
"We will run the refinery without compromising our standards there," Lawal said.
While low-key about business, he is visible in the community and said he spends 60 percent of his time doing community work. He is a Port of Houston commissioner, on the board of directors of the Houston Airport System and chairman of the Houston Mayoral Advisory Board on International Affairs.
He is also a member of the U.S. Trade Advisory Committee on Africa and on the board of the Greater Houston Partnership. He established an engineering endowment at the University of Houston, currently at $600,000.
Friends and business associates honored Lawal in July for his accomplishments at a banquet presented by the Greater Houston Partnership.
Earl Graves, editor and publisher of Black Enterprise, presented Lawal with a leather-bound copy of the issue Camac was listed in.
Lawal's success is no surprise to those who work with him.
Willard Jackson, chairman and CEO of Houston-based Metroplex Industries, said Lawal served as a mentor to him since their meeting in 1989.
"I've known all along that he was probably the largest black-owned business in the world, not just U.S.," Jackson said. "He probably could have made that list 15 years ago, but that type of recognition is not important to him."
Mayor Lee Brown said Houston is lucky to have someone like Lawal.
"All kids can look at City Hall and say 'I can be mayor,' " Brown said. "But now, most are saying, 'I want to be Kase Lawal.' "
"I look at the kids and say, 'Me too.' "
Black entrepreneur takes top honors only reluctantly
By LAUREN BAYNE
Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle
For Kase L. Lawal, the CEO of a multimillion-dollar oil venture, being in the spotlight never mattered.
With little notice, the Nigerian immigrant to Houston has built Camac Holdings, an international oil exploration, refining and trading company with more than 1,000 employees throughout Africa and the United States.
When his was ranked the largest black-owned business in the country in a Black Enterprise magazine contest, he said his marketing staff entered without asking him.
"I wasn't even part of the process," said Lawal, who kept his firm's revenues secret for many years after its founding in 1986. "I just didn't see a reason to publicize the company."
City Council member Carol Alvarado, who got to know Lawal when he helped with her campaign, said that's typical for him.
"He's very behind the scenes -- he doesn't do things for a lot of fanfare," Alvarado said. "He's so active in the community, yet he doesn't ask for anything in return."
Even though Camac's revenues could have earned it a spot years ago as one of the top black-owned businesses in the country, Lawal dodged requests by Black Enterprise to submit information for five years.
Camac was one of 17 Texas-based companies to make the magazine's top 100. Total Premier Services, an oil and gas drilling company with revenues of $242 million, was the only other Houston firm to make the list, at No. 13.
Qualifying businesses must be at least 51 percent black-owned and operated; they must manufacture or own the products they sell.
The entrepreneur's reticence stems from Camac's nature as a family business, 80 percent of which is owned by Lawal, his wife and three children. The remaining 20 percent is divided among his brothers and sisters.
Lawal describes Camac as being like Conoco but on a smaller scale.
The son of a local politician and a textile trader, Lawal enjoyed his life in Africa but felt a calling from the United States around the time he was ready to go to college.
As a child, growing up in Ibadan, Nigeria, Lawal said he knew one day he would be a businessman, he
just wasn't sure what type of enterprise he would own.
His brothers and sisters left Africa to study in England. His father wanted the same for him, but he chose the United States, saying he wanted to be a part of the civil rights struggle, still developing in the early 1970s.
"My father was absolutely opposed to me coming to America," Lawal said. "He feared for my safety and thought it would be hard for me to adjust to the American way of education."
But Lawal came anyway. He studied at Georgia Tech and later transferred to Texas Southern University, where he earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry. He went on to earn a master's in business from Prairie View A&M.
When Lawal started Camac, it traded agricultural commodities such as sugar, tobacco and rice.
He got into the oil business after a pivotal meeting in 1989. Lawal invited Rilwanu Lukman, currently president of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries conference, to a Rotary Club meeting.
Lukman urged changing Camac's focus from agriculture to oil exploration.
While the encounter showed that Lawal had an excellent contact in oil-rich Nigeria, he was new to the business and had little money to put up. He then met with 19 companies over two years before entering into a partnership with Conoco in 1991.
Conoco put up the money; Camac provided the giant Houston-based oil company with a prospect it needed in Nigeria. Camac owned the rights to the blocks of land in Africa where exploration would take place.
Camac stayed with oil exploration for the next eight years and did well. Lawal said Camac is still in a partnership with Conoco that produces more than 20,000 barrels of oil a day.
No spokesman from Conoco was available for comment Thursday. Camac underwent another fundamental change in 1999, when it moved into oil trading and bought a refinery. Lawal said the company's revenues took off with trading, but Camac still makes most of its money through oil exploration and production.
"There's a difference between income and revenue," Lawal said. "Exploration and production is our biggest source of income; trading is our biggest source of revenue."
In 1999, Camac's revenues were $114.3 million. That number jumped to $571.5 million in 2000 and to $979.5 million in 2001. Lawal expects to break the $1 billion barrier in 2002 and is close already. Only one other black-owned American business has made that mark: snack food, beverage and grocery store conglomerate TLC Beatrice International Holdings, owned by Wall Street financier Reginald F. Lewis.
Lately, Camac is involved in a new kind of project, to move a refinery it bought in Blue Island, Ill., to South Africa.
The parts will be shipped to Cape Province and reassembled into a refiner of 13,000 barrels a day.
The refinery will create social and economic empowerment through jobs, Lawal said.
George Beranek, manager of market analysis at the Petroleum Finance Company, said the move makes good business sense because smaller refiners in the United States face expensive upgrades over the next year to reduce sulfur in the fuel produced, Beranek said.
Regular rounds of environmental upgrades are not of much concern in South Africa.
"If you go somewhere where specifications aren't as stringent, you can still run the equipment," Beranek said.
Lawal admits the regulations are not as stiff but said he will still uphold the standards as he would in this country.
"We will run the refinery without compromising our standards there," Lawal said.
While low-key about business, he is visible in the community and said he spends 60 percent of his time doing community work. He is a Port of Houston commissioner, on the board of directors of the Houston Airport System and chairman of the Houston Mayoral Advisory Board on International Affairs.
He is also a member of the U.S. Trade Advisory Committee on Africa and on the board of the Greater Houston Partnership. He established an engineering endowment at the University of Houston, currently at $600,000.
Friends and business associates honored Lawal in July for his accomplishments at a banquet presented by the Greater Houston Partnership.
Earl Graves, editor and publisher of Black Enterprise, presented Lawal with a leather-bound copy of the issue Camac was listed in.
Lawal's success is no surprise to those who work with him.
Willard Jackson, chairman and CEO of Houston-based Metroplex Industries, said Lawal served as a mentor to him since their meeting in 1989.
"I've known all along that he was probably the largest black-owned business in the world, not just U.S.," Jackson said. "He probably could have made that list 15 years ago, but that type of recognition is not important to him."
Mayor Lee Brown said Houston is lucky to have someone like Lawal.
"All kids can look at City Hall and say 'I can be mayor,' " Brown said. "But now, most are saying, 'I want to be Kase Lawal.' "
"I look at the kids and say, 'Me too.' "