T. Boone Pickens*

Thomas Boone Pickens was born on May 22, 1928 in Holdenville, Oklahoma. He was greatly influenced by the hardworking attitudes of his mother and grandmother, and credits his father for teaching him the ability to adjust to hardships. "When I have a disaster, I don't treat it much different than a victory," said Pickens. "We don't get too excited one way or another."

After earning a geology degree from Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College (later Oklahoma State University), Pickens worked for Phillips Petroleum. In 1954, he joined with two other investors to form Petroleum Exploration, Inc. (PEI), which became Mesa Petroleum, one of the nation's largest and most well-known independent exploration and production companies. Pickens also founded BP Capital Fund Advisors LLC in 1997, which grew into one of the nation's most successful energy-oriented investment funds.

Using his wealth of knowledge and experience in the oil and gas industry, Pickens evaluated potential equity investments and energy sector themes, and predicted oil and gas prices with uncanny accuracy. As a result, he was a frequent guest on some of the nation's most-watched business programs, and was coined the "Oracle of Oil" by CNBC. In 2008, he launched a grass-roots campaign aimed at reducing U.S. dependence on imported oil, warning that the nation's dependence on foreign oil is an economic, environmental, and national security threat, and in his 2008 New York Times bestseller, The First Billion Is the Hardest, he details a strategy to regain U.S. energy independence.

Throughout his career, Pickens pushed for corporate accountability, and he was credited with making corporate management more responsive to the interests of their shareholders. To further this approach, Pickens founded the nonprofit United Shareholders Association to help shareholders and to inform them of corporate abuses.

Pickens was recognized on many occasions as a generous philanthropist. "I'm convinced the Lord put me in this life to be in business, make money, and be generous with it," he said. Over the course of his career, Pickens gave to a range of educational institutions, medical research institutions, and treatment centers. In 2006, he formed the T. Boone Pickens Foundation to improve lives through grants that support educational programs, medical research, athletics, corporate wellness, at-risk youths, entrepreneurship, and conservation and wildlife initiatives.