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T.
Boone Pickens
is well known for his involvement as the
chair of the hedge fund BP Capital Management
and his advocacy of US independence from
foreign oil through alternative, renewable
power sources. Pickens has also been listed
as one of the richest Americans by Forbes
magazine and has given over $700 million
to charity.
Thomas
Boone Pickens, Jr. was born on May 22,
1928 in Holdenville, Oklahoma to a father
who leased land rights (oil and mineral).
As a boy, Pickens ran a paper route with
28 deliveries which he quickly expanded
to 156. Pickens would later attribute
this early business practice to his later
success in acquiring and expanding businesses.
In
the late 1930s, Pickens and his family
moved from Oklahoma to Amarillo, Texas.
After finishing his high school education,
Pickens attended the University of Texas
A&M, later transferring to Oklahoma
A&M (now called Oklahoma State University).
Pickens graduated with a degree in geology
in 1951 and soon found a job with Philips
Petroleum. He worked at Philips until
1954, after which he worked with exploratory
well digging. In 1956 Pickens founded
Mesa Petroleum.
Mesa
grew quickly under T. Boone Pickens' watchful
eye and eventually acquired Hugoton Production
Company which, at the time, was more than
30 times as big as Mesa. Pickens continued
to grow his business and, by 1981, Mesa
had become one of the largest independent
oil companies in the world. Pickens continued
to purchase smaller companies but also
set his sights on larger targets including
Gulf Oil, Philips Petroleum, and eventually
Diamond Shamrock. While not all of his
takeover attempts were successful, Pickens
became well known for his ruthless attempts
at acquiring new companies.
In
1989 Pickens moved Mesa to Dallas where,
eight years later, he founded BP Captial
Management (named for Boone Pickens and
not associated with British Petroleum)
which has two hedge funds, Capital Commodity
and Captial Equity, both dealing with
oil and natural gas. Pickens' own stake
in the funds earned him $2.7 billion in
2007.
In
1997 T. Boone Pickens created the Pickens
Fuel Corp., a company promoting the use
of natural gas a cleaner-burning fuel-alternative
for automobiles. As a result of his research
and efforts in the oil industry, Pickens
has supported the claim that the world's
oil supply is on the decline and that
companies need to start investing in not
only alternative fuels, but also domestic
sources. The company was renamed Clean
Energy in 2001.
Pickens
first started warning the public against
high oil prices in late 2007. His predictions
of one barrel of oil costing more than
$100 became a reality in 2008 when the
prices shot up to $145 and eventually
settled under $110. Pickens has since
warned that there is a cap on oil production
and that the US needs to find alternative,
domestic, renewable energy sources to
cut the price to the consumer as well
as decrease the dependence on foreign
oil.
In
June 2007 T. Boone Pickens began promoting
the world's largest wind farm which he
planned for the northwest corner of Texas.
According to his plan, Pickens' wind farm
would produce up to four gigawatts of
electricity and include up to 2700 wind
turbines on almost 200,000 acres of the
Texas Panhandle.
In
July of 2008, Pickens introduced "The
Pickens Plan", a proposal to
reinvent US energy resources by promoting
oil-alternatives such as natural gas,
wind power, and solar energy. A major
part of his plan is to replace current
natural gas demands with wind power, freeing
up the gas for use in other areas like
automotive fuels. The Pickens Plan promotes
the idea of using the central areas of
the US that run from Texas up to Wisconsin
and Minnesota as the primary field for
collecting wind energy. This area, also
known as the Great Plains (and sometimes
Tornado Alley), has some of the highest
potential for wind energy in the world.
According to Pickens, the plan would not
only promote jobs, but also create a central
location for energy resources in the US
due to it's equidistant location between
the two coasts.
Over
the course of his career, Pickens has
contributed hundreds of millions of dollars
to various charities and Universities
including Oklahoma State University, relief
efforts for Hurricane Katrina, The University
of Texas, and various programs supporting
the well-being of families, children,
teenagers, and animals.
This T Boone Pickens biography
may not be reproduced online.
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