Hometown Oil City, PA.



Vincent L. Gregory Junior was brought up in The Great Depression. A Huge Family of 9 Siblings, his Father one of 14 children and his mother one of 12 all living in and around Oil City PA. They all worked to support the family as their father was unemployed. He used to cut wood with his grandfather.



He won a prestigious scholar ship to Princeton University, unheard of in those days.

The war interrupted his studies and he joined USAAF in December 1941.

In April 1944 he came to England with 339 Fighter group a squadron of Mustang P51 fighters based at Fowlmere near Cambridge. He risked his life on many missions over Nazi Germany escorting bombers, it being the first fighter able to escort the bombers for 8 hours.



On D-Day he flew in support of the landings in Normandy. They attacked trains, Lorries and tanks and equipment. He met his wife to be, Marjorie, in Cambridge. He proposed to her and the rest is history. As England was under rationing there was no material for a Wedding dress so my father gave up his parachute.



After the war he was part of the occupying force in Southern Germany. One day a soldier needed to get back to US via Paris as his father was dying. He volunteered to fly him to Paris to catch his plane back to the US. Conditions were very bad, but despite being told not to go they took off. Things were so bad he said lets bailout forgetting he had no parachute. The soldier refused to bail out without him so they crash landed and luckily no one was hurt.



If anyone drove in a car with him they will remember it well, he drove it like a mustang pilot with only a stick for steering.



After the war he returned to Princeton to complete his degree and at the same time studied for his Master’s in Business Administration at Harvard University. He obtained both degrees at the same time and in a shortened time period. Not only is this feat amazing but he came near the top of the class at both Universities. At the same time he and his wife Marjorie had to work to support themselves and. His son was born in 1948.



His first, and only, job was with a medium sized Chemical company Rohm and Haas. He started as a junior accountant and worked in Tennessee and Philadelphia. In 1951 he was chosen to go to France to open a branch of Rohm and Haas. ( 2 people in a hotel room) They started a factory and office from scratch.



In 1955 he moved to London to a recently founded affiliate of Rohm and Haas. He soon became Managing Director. The company realized they had a star and promoted him to Director of European operations. This included all of Europe, West and East, Scandinavia and the Middle East. In 1968 he was called back to the US to become Deputy Overseas sales manager. By 1970 he became head of the Company. President and CEO. He held these positions including Chairman until he retired in 1988 some 18 years at the top.



His family was always important to him, he loved his family. He treated his employees as his

friends, He was always there for anyone, whoever they were. Something few people know - his old boss Don Murphy had a child, Pat, with severe disabilities, before Don died my father took over the effective guardianship of Pat. He continued to look out for her until a time when he was too old to do so.



He was retired for 31 years. He loved his grandchildren and eventually great grandchildren. He was always there to help, and will be remembered as one of the nicest and kindest human beings we will ever meet.