"Gillie", as he was called, showed up in Los Angeles in 1922 at the  tender age of 20 – a quiet young man from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Tennessee.

Within eight years, he had amassed a fortune in oil and real estate. In 1932, at the age of 30, he became one of the Founders of ERT at the invitation of Durward Howes. He was President of ERT in 1938-39.

Gillie started work with the Union Oil Company in the boom days of the newly discovered oilfields in Santa Fe Springs. He bought a few properties himself, and then his obvi­ous talent drew the attention of Alphonzo Bell, Sr., whose wheat farm had sprouted a small forest of oil wells. Bell hired the 27-year old Gillie and they prospered together. They ex­panded Bell's original properties, bought more, and later developed the exclusive suburb of Bel Air in West Los Angeles.

Bell had a lifelong regard, and gratitude, for Gillie's rare abilities. He made Gillie executive vice president of The Bel Air Company and general manager of the Bell Oil and Refining Company. When Bell died in 1947, the Bell Company was sold and Gillie diversified into ranching and farming in Santa Barbara, Los Angeles and Kern Counties.

It is significant that Howard Ahmanson, one of America's shrewdest businessmen, en­tered join ventures with Gillie, whom he met at the Economic Round Table. Gillie, who had homes in Bel Air and at Nev1port Beach, died in Santa Maria at the age of 78.