T. Boone Pickens

Thomas Boone Pickens Jr. was an American oil financier who became one of the most prominent figures in the country's energy industry across six decades. Born in Holdenville, Oklahoma in 1928, he founded Mesa Petroleum in 1956 and built it into one of the world's largest independent oil companies by 1981, becoming known during the 1980s as a corporate raider who pursued major takeover attempts against companies including Cities Service, Gulf Oil and Phillips Petroleum. In 1997 he founded Pickens Fuel Corporation to promote natural gas as a vehicle fuel, which became Clean Energy Fuels Corporation in 2001. Beginning in 2007 he pursued large wind power development in the Texas Panhandle through Mesa Power, and in 2008 he promoted the Pickens Plan, an energy independence proposal built around expanding natural gas and renewable power. He died in 2019.