The Boone Pickens Legacy Experience

Early Life

T. Boone Pickens once said he was born "where the pavement ends, the West begins, and the Rock Island crosses the Frisco." Open land spread out around a young Boone, born in Holdenville, an Oklahoma speck in the grand sweep of the Great Plains. The small Oklahoma town held many life lessons for Pickens as a young boy — crediting his notion of risk-taking to his father and his value of hard work to his mother. Pickens earned a degree in geology from Oklahoma A&M in 1951.

Remarkable Career

Pickens worked for Phillips Petroleum before striking out on his own in 1954. Pickens and two investors formed Petroleum Exploration Inc., which focused on domestic oil and gas opportunities. Later, he formed Altair Oil & Gas Co. and built Mesa Petroleum into one of America's largest independent natural gas and oil companies. He advocated for American business shareholders — changing the direction of business dynamics. In July 2008, Boone launched a self-funded, $100 million, grass-roots campaign aimed at reducing this country's crippling dependence on OPEC oil.

Charitable Impact

The breadth of Pickens' philanthropy — more than $1 billion during his career — included health and medical research, treatment and services; entrepreneurship; kids at risk; education and athletics, with a particular focus on his alma mater, Oklahoma State University; corporate health and fitness; and conservation and wildlife management. He was among the most generous collegiate philanthropists of all time, contributing $652 million to OSU (almost evenly divided between academics and athletics at the institution where the football stadium bears his name.)