George Jackson “Jack” Tankersley (1921–1995) was president and then chairman of the East Ohio Gas Company from 1966 to 1974. Born in Stahlstown, Pennsylvania, he graduated from Auburn University in 1943 with a degree in mechanical engineering. After serving in the Pacific with the Navy during World War II, he returned to Auburn as a member of the engineering faculty. His career in the gas industry began in 1949 when he joined the Gas Light Company in Columbus, Georgia, as an industrial engineer; in 1957, he became president of Western Kentucky Gas. He joined the Pittsburgh-based Consolidated Natural Gas Company (CNG) in 1966 as president of its largest subsidiary, East Ohio Gas in Cleveland. After Tankersley’s appointment as head of CNG in 1974, he led the interstate pipeline company into gas and oil exploration in the Gulf of Mexico, a venture that eventually turned CNG into a significant producer. He retired as chairman in 1987.

Tankersley was appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson as the first chairman of the National Alliance of Businessmen in Cleveland, working to promote the hiring of members of minorities, and he served on Mayor Carl Stokes’s Council on Youth Opportunity. He was chairman of the Pittsburgh branch of the Federal Reserve Bank and vice chair of the board of the University of Pittsburgh. He served with the Boy Scouts and Junior Achievement through most of his career, and was inducted into the Junior Achievement Hall of Fame in 1994.