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But Ed Queeny's greatest talent is for finance. He steered Monsanto through the depression, shrewdly bought up companies as fast as they came up for sale, split Monsanto into six domestic divisions and set up affiliated companies in six foreign countries. His buys turned out well. Last year, even before insurance payments on the Texas City disaster (TIME, April 28, 1947), in which a $22 million Monsanto plant was wrecked, the company came up with a $15,561,000 profit on $145,200,000 in sales.
New World. Queeny bought talent along with companies. He got Monsanto's present President William M. Rand when he bought out the Merrimac Chemical Co. In 1936, Monsanto absorbed Dayton's Thomas & Hochwalt Laboratories, mainly to snare Charles Allen Thomas and Carroll A. Hochwalt, who had helped General Motors' Charles F. Kettering develop Ethyl gasoline. Thomas is now Monsanto's executive vice president; Hochwalt runs the company's atomic-energy projects (Miamisburg and another plant now abuilding in Marion, Ohio).
Monsanto's financial stake in atomic energy is slim: it will run the laboratories on a cost-plus-fixed-fee basis for the Atomic Energy Commission, which also pays the construction costs. But Ed Queeny has his eye on the revolution ahead and intends to be ready. Says Queeny: "So far atomic energy has not been especially profitable for the company. But it's a new tool. We're getting the know-how."