T. Boone Pickens

Thomas Boone Pickens ( May 22nd, 1928 in Holdenville, Oklahoma) is an American entrepreneur and oil investor. He is among the richest people in the United States and is considered large money donors especially for sports and education.

Life

Pickens was born in Holdenville, the only child of his parents. His father worked in the oil business. During his high school years, the family moved to Amarillo Texas. At age eleven, he was there his first job as a newspaper delivery boy. He attended Texas A & M University with a basketball scholarship, but which Pickens lost after one year. Therefore, he went to Oklahoma A & M (now Oklahoma State University), where he received his degree in geology. After graduating, he worked in a refinery before he was a geologist with Phillips Petroleum. In 1954 he left the company and worked as a consultant. At the time he was already married, had two daughters and a third child was on the way. In 1956 he founded a company that laid the foundation for the later Mesa Petroleum Company said. The company Petroleum Exploration, Inc., he ran together with Eugene McCartt and John O'Brien, the latter an uncle of his wife, who held 25 percent of the company's capital. The company sold information on potential new development areas for oil. In 1959, Pickens Altair Oil and Gas Company, to explore oil fields in Canada. In 1960 the company acquired the company Standard Gilsonite, a mining company from Utah. 1962 Made the Petroleum Exploration, Inc., a profit of $ 750,000. 1964, the company was renamed Mesa Petroleum and converted into a public limited company. The company performed well, not least by buying other companies, which Pickens in the 1980s as a lucrative regarded as the growth from within. In 1985 he made ​​it to the cover of Time Magazine and thought about a presidential candidacy after.

Since early 2008, Pickens committed to wind power. In nationwide commercials he promotes his plan to build a corridor of wind turbines from the southern U.S. to the Canadian border in the north. For Pickens presented two billion U.S. dollars available and announced that he would increase the amount if the action is successful.

T. Boone Pickens has five children and is married to Madeleine Ann Pickens.