T. Boone Pickens, a celebrated entrepreneur and internationally famed AAPG member who generously supported the AAPG Foundation and other geoscience initiatives throughout his life, has made a major donation via his estate.
Pickens died in September 2019, but the T. Boone Pickens Foundation last month announced it has given the AAPG Foundation a grant for $3 million to be used to expand the scope of the Boone Pickens Digital Geology Fund.
The gift will accelerate and sustain technological developments in the field of digital geology, an initiative started in 2008 because of a $9.4 million gift from Pickens to the Foundation.
The original gift was made to develop a GIS digital geology consortium between AAPG and Pickens’ beloved Oklahoma State University.
In fact, that gift created the first consortium of its kind, designed to produce digital GIS products through OSU’s geology and geography department that were then available to professionals and the public via AAPG’s database.
Technology has changed dramatically over the past 25 years, of course, so Pickens’ newest gift will be used to explore and harness emerging digital technologies for using geoscience data.
Specifically, Pickens’ donation will support “new data projects, research, publications and symposia/conferences that seek to advance the deployment of information technology to use geoscience information to meet the world’s growing energy needs.”
AAPG Foundation leadership not only gratefully acknowledged the gift, but praised its potential to modernize, extend and enhance geoscience research.
“As always, we are greatly appreciative of any gifts to the Foundation – in the case of the latest Boone Pickens’ gift, this is especially significant and allows the Trustees to have an immediate and more meaningful impact in the area of digital geosciences and associated research and application,” said Foundation Chair Jim McGhay.
The AAPG Foundation supports educational, charitable and scientific objectives that directly and indirectly benefit the geologic profession and the general public.
“It is our hope that the name of T. Boone Pickens will continue to be recognized through the legacy of his generosity,” McGhay added, “and that these funds have meaningful impact on the geosciences and the geoscientists whose lives this will touch.”
Making It Personal
Pickens was an AAPG member since 1954 and a Trustee Associate since 1979.
A native of Holdenville, Okla., he received his geology degree from Oklahoma State University in 1951. Following graduation, he was employed by Phillips Petroleum, but three years later he became a wildcatter.
In 1956 he founded the company that would later become Mesa Petroleum. In 1997 he founded BP Capital Management.
Eventually he became one of AAPG’s highest public profile figures, known as both an energy visionary who pushed for energy self-sufficiency by making natural gas, wind power and solar energy the keys to American energy independence.
He also was known in the business world as a corporate raider who changed the face and nature of the business world; a defender of stockholder rights; and a daring entrepreneur who made, lost and remade fortunes.
Throughout his career he was involved in dozens of business activities that impacted major corporations around the world.
For the AAPG Foundation, Pickens’ philanthropic zenith came in 2008 when he made the donation to develop a GIS digital geology consortium between AAPG and Pickens’ beloved alma mater, Oklahoma State University.
That deal enabled AAPG to “get support for digital projects at OSU,” recalled then-AAPG and Foundation executive director Rick Fritz, “plus we were able to get most of the AAPG Highway Maps digitized.”
Fritz said AAPG members John Shelton and Gary Stewart accompanied him to Dallas on the trip to get Pickens’ final approval.
“At the end of my presentation, Boone looked them both in the eye and said, ‘Would you fund this project?’ Fritz said. “Both John and Gary nodded their heads and said, ‘Yes,’ and it was done.
“Boone placed a lot of emphasis on personal relationships,” he added.
It was one of the largest single bequeathals the AAPG Foundation had ever received.
The following year Pickens was awarded the Lewis Weeks Memorial Medal, the AAPG Foundation’s highest honor.
Pickens’ passing in 2019 brought tributes and comments from around the world. He made headlines throughout his career, often with controversy, as a corporate raider who changed the face and nature of the business world.
But a huge part of his life was also spent being a generous philanthropist, especially when it came to education and geosciences. His overall lifetime benevolence, according to the Tulsa World, is estimated at having been more than $1 billion.
“For most of my adult life, I’ve believed that I was put on Earth to make money and be generous with it,” he wrote shortly before his death. “I’ve never been a fan of inherited wealth.
“I liked knowing that I helped a lot of people.”