Boone Pickens makes $9.4 million gift to Geologist Association

Friday, June 20, 2008

(June 20, 2008) - The American Association of Petroleum Geologists Foundation has announced a $9.4 million donation from geologist, businessman and entrepreneur T. Boone Pickens to develop a GIS digital geology consortium between AAPG and Oklahoma State University.

The gift from the T. Boone Pickens Foundation is designated to create the first consortium of its kind, designed to produce digital geographical information system products through OSU’s Geology and Geography Department and be made available to professionals and the public via AAPG’s intranet database.

The $9.4 million donation to create the AAPG/OSU consortium is in addition to the $100 million donation by Pickens to OSU announced on May 22, his 80th birthday.

The AAPG Foundation gift comprises $240,000 per year for 10 years, plus a gift of $7 million provided in Pickens’ will as a legal testament. It is one of the largest bequests the AAPG Foundation has ever received.

In April, the AAPG Foundation launched a campaign to raise $35 million for a number of projects to support educational, charitable and scientific projects that directly and indirectly benefit the geologic professional and general public.

Pickens’ gift to the AAPG Foundation raises the total amount to $23 million pledged toward the fund-raising campaign goal, according to AAPG Foundation Executive Director Rick Fritz.  
“Mr. Pickens has provided funds for a unique opportunity – to merge the prowess and talents of AAPG and OSU to build a new Petroleum Geoscience Consortium that will develop maps and data that will be seen around the world – perhaps even change the world,” Fritz said.

Pickens, an internationally known businessman and philanthropist, is a native of Holdenville, Okla., a graduate of OSU and has been a member of AAPG since 1954.  He presently chairs the hedge fund BP Capital Management.
    
The funds will provide operating capital for the Boone Pickens Digital Geology Fund to provide geologic, scientific and resource information to the general public via a map-based format researched and compiled through graduate geology students.

The project also will benefit students by providing industry-specific research projects, which would be published in industry-friendly formats, enhancing their skill set and boosting their desirability as graduates.

AAPG has an extensive digital database, with online search-and-retrieval of the full archive AAPG Bulletin, AAPG’s highly respected scientific journal published for 91 years, all AAPG Special Publications plus journal publications of other notable organizations and publishers.

AAPG also publishes an online journal, Search and Discovery, dedicated to provide the latest geoscientific information to the entire upstream petroleum community.

AAPG, with over 32,000 members in 115 countries, was founded in 1917 and is the world’s largest professional geoscience organization and has international headquarters in Tulsa, Okla.  

The Association fosters scientific research to advance the science of geology and provides publications, conferences and educational opportunities to geoscientists and disseminates the most current geological information available to the general public.