John Val Browning, former president of Browning Arms Co. and co-founder of Southern Pacific Petroleum, a pioneer in developing shale oil, died in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, March 18, 2003, after a short illness. He was 77.
Mr. Browning was born June 30, 1925, in Belgium where his father, Val Allen, supervised the manufacture of guns invented by his father, John Moses Browning.
He gained an education at Brown Military Academy and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he studied engineering. Shortly after graduating from MIT he was drafted into the Navy.
In 1949, he moved back to Belgium, where the factories at Fabrique National had been badly damaged by World War II. He and his father devoted themselves to rebuilding the sporting-arms business.
Mr. Browning was honored for his work at FN with the Croix de Chevalier de L'Ordre de Leopold, one of Belgium's highest honors.
He took the place of his grandfather as president of Browning Arms Co. in 1962. In 1976, a federal grand jury indicted him for undervaluing imported supplies from Japan and Belgium and swindling customs money. He denied all charges, but in 1979, a jury found him guilty of one charge.
He sold Browning Arms Co. and resigned as president and director. After paying fines and prosecution costs, Mr. Browning went on to co-found Southern Pacific Petroleum in Australia with a fellow MIT student, Ian McFarlane.
SPP developed technology to cook petroleum from shale-like rock to supplement the world's oil supply amid the energy crisis of the 1970s and '80s. Mr. Browning is survived by his wife, their two children, and a son from his first marriage.
Family and friends will gather Monday, March 24, from 6 to 8 p.m. at Leavitt's Mortuary, 836 36th Street, in Ogden. Private memorial services well be held at a later date.