T. Boone Pickens
Thomas Boone Pickens Jr. (May 22, 1928 – September 11, 2019) was an American business magnate and financier. Pickens chaired the hedge fund BP Capital Management. He was a well-known takeover operator and corporate raider during the 1980s. As of November 2016, Pickens had a net worth of $500 million.[1]
T. Boone Pickens
September 11, 2019 (aged 91)
Chairman of BP Capital Management
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Lynn O'Brien(m. 1949; div. 1971)
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Beatrice Carr(m. 1972; div. 1998)
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Nelda Cain(m. 2000; div. 2004)
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Toni Brinker(m. 2014; div. 2017)
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Early life[edit]
Pickens was born in Holdenville, Oklahoma, the son of Grace Marcaline (née Molonson), and Thomas Boone Sibley Pickens. His father worked as an oil and mineral landman (rights leaser). During World War II, his mother ran the local Office of Price Administration, rationing gasoline and other goods in three counties.[2] Pickens was the first child born via Caesarean section in the history of Holdenville hospital.[3] His great-great-grandfather was politician Ezekiel Pickens, who was Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina.[4]
At age 12, Pickens delivered newspapers. He quickly expanded his paper route from 28 papers to 156.[5] Pickens later cited his boyhood job as an early introduction to "expanding quickly by acquisition", a business practice he favored later in life.[5]
When the oil boom in Oklahoma ended in the late 1930s, Pickens' family moved to Amarillo, Texas.[5] Pickens attended Texas A&M on a basketball scholarship, but was cut from the team and lost the scholarship[6][5] and transferred to Oklahoma A&M (now Oklahoma State University), where he majored in geology. He was a member of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity. He graduated from Oklahoma State with a degree in geology in 1951. Following his graduation, Pickens was employed by Phillips Petroleum. He worked for Phillips until 1954.[7] In 1956, following his period as a wildcatter, he founded the company that would later become Mesa Petroleum.[7]
Personal life and death[edit]
In 1949, Pickens married Lynn O'Brien. They had four children together; Deborah Pickens, Michael O. Pickens, Thomas B. Pickens III, and Pam Pickens. Pickens divorced Lynn in 1971. In April 1972, Pickens married Beatrice "Bea" Carr Stuart and adopted one of her daughters, Elizabeth "Liz" Cordia. They had no children together.[87] In November 2000, Pickens married Nelda Cain. They divorced in November 2004. They had no children together.[88] In 2005, Pickens married Madeleine Paulson, the third wife and widow of the founder of Gulfstream Aerospace, Allen E. Paulson. Pickens and Madeleine lived in Preston Hollow, Dallas and owned a ranch along the Canadian River in the Texas Panhandle. They divorced amicably in 2012 and had no children together.[89] It was reported on December 4, 2013, that Pickens' public relations representative told an NBC 5 affiliate reporter that he had proposed to Toni Chapman Brinker, widow of restaurateur Norman Brinker, at his ranch in Pampa. The couple married on February 14, 2014.[90] The couple later divorced in June 2017.[91]
Pickens had four biological children and one adopted daughter.[87] As of 2007, Pickens had twelve grandchildren.[2] In January 2013, Pickens' 21-year-old grandson Thomas "Ty" Boone Pickens IV died from a heroin overdose. Ty, the son of Thomas B. Pickens III, was a student at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas.
In July 2009, Pickens was the subject of controversy after he had a construction crew go to his grandmother's former home, that was now owned by someone else, in Holdenville, Oklahoma and remove a slab of driveway concrete that he had signed as a child. The current owner of the home asserted ownership, and the slab was returned. In February 2010, a judge ruled that the slab belonged to the current homeowner.
Pickens died at his home in Dallas on September 11, 2019.[14] He was in declining health and suffered a series of strokes and a fall in 2017, but the cause of death was not disclosed at the time of his death.
On September 18, 2019, his foundation published "A final message from T. Boone Pickens" shared before his death on September 11, 2019, a personal reflection about his life, lessons learned and his mortality.[92][93]