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	BIOGRAPHY

Texas oilman and entrepreneur Boone Pickens founded MESA Inc. in 1956 and the United Shareholders Association in 1986. His autobiography, Boone, was listed for 15 weeks on The New York Times Best Seller List.

Dallas resident Boone Pickens grew up in Holdenville, a small town in eastern Oklahoma. He attributes much of his success to his mother and father. Pickens says, “My parents taught me early that hard work, honesty and ambition are the keys to success.”

His father was in the oil business, and his mother ran the Office of Price Administration during World War II, rationing gasoline and other goods that were in short supply for four counties.

Pickens graduated as a geologist from Oklahoma State University in 1951 and started work with Phillips Petroleum Co. in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. His monthly salary was only $290. After three and a half years, he struck out on his own as an independent geologist.

In 1956, Pickens borrowed $2,500 and with two partners formed the predecessor companies to MESA. He took MESA public in 1964, convincing his drilling participants to convert their interest into stock. During his tenure as Chairman and CEO, a position he left in late 1996, Pickens built MESA into one of the largest independent producers of natural gas and oil in the United States. Over the years, MESA operated in Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom and Africa.

From its inception, MESA was at the forefront of change and innovation. MESA’s fitness program is one example. Pickens has long understood the benefits of physical fitness. MESA’s fitness program has become a model for corporate America, and MESA was the first company to be accredited by the Institute for Aerobics Research, founded by Dr. Kenneth Cooper in Dallas.

In 1989, Pickens became the largest stockholder in Koito Manufacturing Co., a Tokyo-based manufacturer of automobile parts. Koito management vigorously resisted his efforts for board representation, which were unrelated to MESA. Pickens is credited with exposing the chief obstacle to U.S. investment in Japan: corporate cartels, known as keiretsus.

“I believe in free trade, but I also believe in fair trade. I’m not worried about America’s ability to compete — and win — in the global marketplace. Properly led, the American worker is the best in the world. But we must have a level playing field, which Japan refuses to allow.”

In early 1997, Pickens started two new ventures: BP Capital LLC, an energy trading partnership, and Pickens Fuel Corp., which owns and operates natural gas fueling stations for vehicles in the Los Angeles Basin.