Oil Investor Celebrates a Good Year With a Round of Large Gifts

Last year, Boone Pickens celebrated his 77th birthday, got married for the fourth time, and made more money than in

his entire career with the oil company that made him famous.

The founder of Mesa Petroleum won celebrity in the 1980s by attempting to take over oil companies many times the size of his own. But with BP Capital Management, the Dallas energy-investment firm he started after leaving Mesa in 1996, he has amassed a fortune that Forbes estimates at $1.5-billion.

In his philanthropy, he is taking on new projects and expanding his giving because he says he wants to see the impact of his donations in his lifetime. His biggest gift in 2005, $165-million to improve athletic facilities at his alma mater, Oklahoma State University, in Stillwater, helped bring Mr. Pickens’s total giving last year to nearly $230-million.

Boone Pickens (No. 5) Total committed in 2005: $229.2-million Recipients: Oklahoma State University, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children

It has also sparked a campus debate over how the university manages its relationship with its biggest benefactor.

Mr. Pickens has hired a full-time staff member to help vet organizations that seek his support and has set up a fund at Communities Foundation of Texas. Other large gifts included $10-million to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library Foundation, in Simi Valley, Calif., and $8.1-million to Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children. Mr. Pickens also made donations ranging in size from $50 to nearly $7-million to more than 90 other groups.

The wiry Mr. Pickens, a former high-school basketball star who spends an hour in the gym down the hall from his office each morning before beginning work at 8, says he plans to give away up to 80 percent of his fortune. “I very much want to give and see the results, and not give after I’m gone,” he says.

‘Put the Bird Dog on It’

Marti Carlin, the former motivational consultant from Tulsa, Okla., whom Mr. Pickens hired last June, sorts through the hundreds of requests he gets each year from organizations seeking support. Ms. Carlin and Jay Rosser, Mr. Pickens’s spokesman, sometimes visit organizations in and around Dallas before deciding where to give.

Beyond his support for Oklahoma State, Mr. Pickens’s giving is focused on medical research, political advocacy, children’s health, education, and health and human services.

Asked how he ensures his money is well spent, Mr. Pickens, an avid quail hunter, nods to Ms. Carlin and says: “Put the bird dog on it.”

Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children, in Dallas, which Mr. Pickens started supporting in 2000 after the hospital treated one of his grandchildren, won $8.1-million from Mr. Pickens last year for a new conference center.

J.C. Montgomery, the hospital’s president, says that Mr. Pickens has visited the institution and shared with its medical staff his philosophy about working hard and staying fit. (“I don’t want to get old and feel bad,” explains Mr. Pickens.)

Gilda’s Club North Texas, a Dallas center that provides emotional and social support to cancer patients and their families, landed a $250,000 gift by contacting Mr. Pickens’s office and asking him to sponsor “Noogieland,” a playroom for children who have cancer or who know people with the disease. Mr. Pickens had given four-figure gifts to the organization in the past, but the group saw an opportunity to involve him in a bigger way, says Kelly Counts, the organization’s development associate.

Ms. Carlin and Mr. Rosser took a tour of the organization and then provided advice to Mr. Pickens. “Marti does a great job of making recommendations,” says Mr. Rosser. “He drives the train.”

Like many organizations, Gilda’s Club hopes that Mr. Pickens’s support will be a boon to their fund raising. It is considering using the example of his gift to ask another Dallas hedge-fund investor who has contributed to its capital campaign to give at a higher level, says Ms. Counts.

Mr. Pickens awarded $750,000 to Jonathan’s Place, an emergency shelter that provides care to children under age 12, after Alex Szewczyk, an analyst at BP Capital Management, suggested the group. Ms. Carlin then visited the shelter, which sits on a 39-acre strip of land in nearby Garland.

Both Ms. Carlin and Mr. Szewczyk made their own contributions along with Mr. Pickens’s gift, says Doug Hood, the group’s marketing director.

Leading by Example

BP Capital encourages its 25 employees to bring forward ideas for groups to support. Mr. Pickens will often give larger amounts if employees contribute.

Mr. Pickens takes a competitive approach to philanthropy, challenging others to make donations.

“I say don’t be bringing any ideas for telling me to give money away if you’re not willing to give it too,” says Mr. Pickens.

Bonnie McElveen-Hunter, chairwoman of the American Red Cross and a friend of Mr. Pickens, says that the second phone call she received after Hurricane Katrina was from the Dallas investor, who asked how he could help. Mr. Pickens contributed an initial $5-million to relief and then used an appearance on a television news program to ask others to contribute.

Leona Helmsley, the real-estate mogul, was one of several big donors who Ms. McElveen-Hunter says she believes gave in response to Mr. Pickens’s call. (Ultimately, Mr. Pickens gave a total of nearly $7-million to the Red Cross in 2005.)

BP Capital employees contributed $30,000 to relief. “Boone leads by example,” says Ms. McElveen-Hunter. “Everybody at the company gave. And I think it’s also an indication that the organization is much more than a business, it’s also a family.”

While Mr. Pickens says he is concerned about how his money is used — just the way he is in his business — the criticisms the Red Cross received after Hurricane Katrina didn’t lead him to reconsider his support.

“People are operating under difficult conditions and they have to make decisions sometimes quickly, and sometimes they make mistakes,” he says. “But over all, the Red Cross is what we have, that’s what we support, and that’s what does the most good as far as I can see.”

In addition to donating money, Mr. Pickens has provided volunteer help to many charities. For years, he has delivered meals through the Meals on Wheels program in the Dallas metropolitan area, along with his personal trainer.

Last year, Mr. Pickens pledged $1-million over five years to the organization, according to Robert Carpenter, president of the Visiting Nurse Association of Texas, which runs the program.

After Hurricane Katrina, Mr. Pickens and his new wife, Madeleine, provided direct support to some victims of Hurricane Katrina — animals left homeless by the storm.

The couple flew to Baton Rouge, La., chartered an airplane, and helped load it with pets that were then transported to animal shelters in California.

Mr. Pickens’s own dog, Murdock, a papillon, accompanies his owner to the BP Capital office each morning at 6:30 and “barks people in.”

In the years since he left Mesa, Mr. Pickens has taken on numerous new projects, including trying to sell water from an aquifer in the Texas Panhandle. He is also the founder of Clean Energy, which sells natural gas as an alternative to gasoline. He keeps one eye glued to the computer screen behind his desk showing the prices of stocks in which BP is invested.

“I wish Boone would slow down, but he would be bored to death,” says Jim Albright, who attended high school with Mr. Pickens.

Mr. Pickens has given up some of the formal trappings of corporate life — for example, he rarely wears a tie to the office anymore — but agrees that he can’t easily give up the thrill of making money, particularly as his investments continue to rise along with the price of oil. “They’ll take me out in a box,” he says.

Also thrilling, he’s found, is giving his money away. He holds up two fingers, signaling a short distance: “I’d about that much rather make it than give it away, but it’s close.”