Keeping the oil flowing.

Marie Knowles, president of Arco Transportation Co., knows what it takes to succeed in the traditionally male-dominated oil industry

It was late April, during the peak of the spurt in gasoline prices, when Marie Knowles got the call at her hotel room at midnight.

An Arco pipeline, which carries oil from ports in the Texas gulf to an Oklahoma distribution terminal where it is picked up and trucked to 32 refineries throughout the Midwest, was blocked.

Knowles, president of Long Beach-based Arco Transportation Co., a subsidiary of L.A.-based Atlantic Richfield Co., says she remembers saying, "Oh, dear."

A pipeline plug was bad news at a time when gasoline prices were unstable, Knowles says. A problem such as this can have a negative psychological effect, causing gasoline prices to soar, she adds.

The next day Knowles assembled a number of teams to work on the problem. The answer they came up with was to ask the U.S. government if Arco could buy oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

In a first of its kind deal, the U.S. Department of Energy agreed to lease Arco up to 1 million barrels of oil. Arco used it to start up another, larger pipeline to deliver oil to be refined into gasoline at the potentially affected refineries.

At Arco's annual meeting in May, Arco Chairman Mike R. Bowlin singled out Knowles for praise for her creative work on the project, which he says was an appropriate use for the federal oil reserves.

Bowlin, in a prepared statement, says Knowles "is an imaginative and resourceful manager, knowledgeable in financial matters and entrepreneurial in her thinking."

As one of five presidents of Arco operating companies, Knowles is one of the highest ranking women in the U.S. oil industry. She oversees a company with $1 billion in annual revenue, about $2 billion in assets and about $200 million in annual net income.

The company is responsible for transporting gasoline, oil and petrochemicals through more than 4,000 miles of pipeline and in 10 tankers.

Arco Transportation Co. is headquartered on Ocean Avenue in Long Beach and Knowles' office offers a 180-degree view of the shore from Newport Beach to Palos Verdes.

"The best part of it is I can see our terminal," says Knowles.

Her job is to keep oil, gasoline and petrochemicals moving for Arco and the other clients the company serves. These days, as oil wells in the contiguous U.S. and Alaska are producing less oil, that job is changing, somewhat. She recently made a move to reverse the flow of a pipeline to bring more oil from Northern California to refineries in the L.A. Basin.

Also, last year, Knowles negotiated a deal with Phillips Petroleum Co. to join two pipelines together to form the second largest pipeline project in the contiguous U.S. That pipeline will bring more oil from the Gulf of Mexico to the mid-continental U.S. as the nation becomes more dependent on imported oil, explains Al Greenstein, Arco spokesman.

Bowlin cites Knowles' work on that pipeline project as an example of how "Marie knows how to get things done."

A glance at Knowles' resume shows her to be a versatile executive with a strong background in science and finance.

Prior to being named to her present post, she was treasurer of the parent corporation.

According to her resume, Knowles has held numerous positions of increasing responsibility during her 22-year career with Arco, including assignments in crude oil supply, corporate planning and investor relations.

Prior to joining Arco, Knowles led a team of engineers who worked on design and construction contracts for Irvine-based engineering giant Fluor Corp.

She was the first woman to receive a master's in chemical engineering at USC. She later went back to college at night to get her M.B.A.

In person, Knowles, who is to turn 50 this year, appears to be a very private individual. She seems to be uncomfortable with personal questions and doesn't offer anything about herself beyond what is asked.

She grew up in South Central Los Angeles, raised by her father. "My parents divorced when I was very little. I was so young, I really don't remember (the divorce)," she says.

Her husband, Richard, also works at Arco in the company's division of environmental health and safety. But she denied the Business Journal's request to interview him.

They have two sons, ages 9 and 10. She says one of her greatest pleasures these days is watching them play Little League games. "I had two babies, 15 months apart at age 39 and 40," she says.

Knowles likes sailing and fly-fishing. "I once caught a 20- to 25-pound silver salmon," she says.

She says her weakness is chocolate. "I never met a carbohydrate I didn't like," she laughs.

And she says her best strength is her ability to assemble teams to solve problems.

While Bowlin singled Knowles out for praise for the oil buy in April, Knowles declined to take credit for the plan during an interview with the Business Journal. She says it was the work of her teams.

"This is not being modest, but this was very much a team effort," she says.

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Marie Knowles

Age: 49 Native of: Los Angeles Resident of: South Pasadena Education: B.S. and M.S. in chemical engineering, USC; MBA from USC Spouse: Richard Knowles