[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 2]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 2046]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




          HONORING THE CAREER OF MR. JACOB CHAPMAN BELIN, JR.

                                 ______
                                 

                             HON. JIM COSTA

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, February 23, 2016

  Mr. COSTA. Mr. Speaker, I, along with Representative McCarthy and 
Representative Valadao, rise today to congratulate Mr. Jacob Chapman 
Belin, Jr., on his well-deserved retirement as President of Kern Oil & 
Refining Co. He deserves to be commended for his tireless work within 
the petroleum industry and for his outstanding work with Kern Oil for 
the past forty-four years.
  Mr. Belin was born in Port St. Joe, Florida on March 31, 1948 to 
Jacob Chapman Belin, Sr. and Myrle Fillingim Belin. As a young student, 
Mr. Belin was actively engaged in his studies and was well-known for 
his passion for basketball. He attended Port St. Joe High School where 
he was recognized as Florida's second-leading scorer in basketball, 
served as President of his senior class, and graduated as valedictorian 
in 1966.
  Upon graduation from high school, Mr. Belin attended North Carolina 
State University (NCSU) where he graduated in 1970 and received a 
Bachelor of Science degree in Physical Sciences and Applied 
Mathematics, with a dual minor in Engineering Mechanics and Economics. 
While at NCSU, Mr. Belin was also a member of Phi Kappa Phi, one of the 
nation's oldest multidisciplinary collegiate honor societies. Mr. Belin 
went on to attend Georgia Institute of Technology from 1970-1972 in 
pursuit of a Master's Degree in Industrial Management.
  During the summer of 1972, Mr. Belin began to work at Charter Oil 
Company in Jacksonville, Florida. While at Charter Oil Company, Mr. 
Belin had the opportunity to work with different Charter Oil Company 
subsidiaries, which included Kern County Refinery (now known as Kern 
Oil and Refining Co.). The work that Mr. Belin did with Kern County 
Refinery led him to accept a job offer at the Kern County Refinery 
office in Cerritos, California in April of 1974. Mr. Belin worked in 
the Refinery's crude oil and products supply marketing department until 
1977.
  While pursuing his career in the petroleum industry, Mr. Belin 
married the love of his life Betty Grace Phillips on June 29, 1974. 
Together they had one son, Phillip Andrew Belin who was born on October 
5, 1977. Mr. and Mrs. Belin always ensured that Phillip was involved in 
sports and recreational activities. Furthermore, Mr. Belin was very 
active in young Phillip's Little League baseball program, was a manager 
of several of Phillip's youth baseball teams, and coached his youth 
basketball team for several years alongside his good friends, Tom 
Jensen and Ed Lassiter. Phillip married Marie Milligan and has blessed 
Mr. Belin and Betty with four grandchildren, Simon, James, Whitney and 
Serena. In addition to being a family man, Mr. Belin is a man of faith 
and has been heavily involved in faith-based activities within the 
communities he lived in over the past years. These activities include 
serving as an adult Sunday school teacher at Champion Forest Baptist 
Church and being a member of Rolling Hills Covenant Church as well as 
Peninsula Community Church.
  By mid-1977, Mr. Belin had opened a crude oil, products and LPG 
trading office for Kern County Refinery in Houston, Texas. He served in 
the Houston office until 1984 and was then relocated back to Long 
Beach, California to what was known as Kern Oil and Refining Co. It was 
in Long Beach, in 1985 that Mr. Belin was promoted and became President 
of Kern Oil and Refining Co.
  Mr. Belin received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the College 
of Physical and Mathematical Sciences at NCSU in 1993. Furthermore, Mr. 
Belin was a huge factor in the growth of Kern, transitioning the 
company from a 10,000 barrel per day plant to the safe, competitive, 
and compliant, 27,000 barrel-per-day small and independent California 
refinery that it is today.
  Over the past forty-four years, Mr. Belin has been a great leader and 
extremely dedicated to Kern, which has ultimately brought the company 
to success. In Mr. Belin's words, ``I gave everything I could to Kern; 
as one might say in the game of basketball, I left it all on the court! 
My career goals were simple: work hard; ask others their opinion/
thoughts; listen to them; be decisive; show others the respect they 
deserve; and defend Kern.''
  Mr. Speaker, it is with great respect that we ask our colleagues in 
the House of Representatives to join us in paying tribute to the career 
of Mr. Jacob Chapman Belin, Jr. We thank him for his service and 
lasting contributions to California's petroleum industry.

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