Captain John Barneson (1862-1941) was one of the most important figures in commerce and development on the Pacific Coast of California.

Captain Barneson was a Director and Vice President of Standard Oil after the merger.

He was one of the most popular social and business figures in the early 1900s and helped transform the economy of California.

In his memoirs Herbert Hoover wrote: The matter was not itself so important but it brought me the acquaintance of Captain John Barneson, the president of General Petroleum.

Honest, courageous, frank, generous and loyal, and with a high quality of humor, he had started before the mast; risen to command a naval supply ship in the Spanish–American War; gone into the shipping business for himself; thence into oil fuel business; from there finally into oil production, where he built up the General Petroleum Company to a great industry."