The breadth of T. Boone Pickens' career is staggering. He built the largest independent oil company in the United States and flourished as an entrepreneur after leaving it, generating hundreds of millions of dollars in the process. Among his lengthy accolades, Financial World named him CEO of the Decade in 1989 and the Oil and Gas Investor listed him as one of the “100 Most Influential People of the Petroleum Century.

“The thing you have to understand about Boone is that it’s all about action,” longtime associate Bobby Stillwell told Grant’s Interest Rate Observer in 2004. “There’s no sitting around.”