Aubrey McClendon

Aubrey Kerr McClendon (July 14, 1959 – March 2, 2016) was an American businessman and the founder and chief executive officer of American Energy Partners, LP.

He also co-founded Chesapeake Energy, serving as its CEO and chairman.

He was an outspoken advocate for natural gas as an alternative to oil and coal fuels, and a pioneer in employing fracking.

McClendon was born July 14, 1959, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, the son of Carole Kerr and Joe Connor McClendon.

He was the great-nephew of Robert S. Kerr, a governor of Oklahoma and U.S. senator from the state.

McClendon spent his childhood in Belle Isle, a neighborhood in Oklahoma City and attended Belle Isle Elementary School, a public school.

He graduated from Heritage Hall School in 1977 as senior class president and co-valedictorian.

As a teenager, McClendon started a lawn mowing business, through which he had an early encounter with Shannon Self, who later became a founding board member of Chesapeake Energy Corporation.

McClendon graduated from Duke in 1981 with a B.A. in history.

His favorite area of study was the post-Civil War Reconstruction Era.

McClendon minored in accounting and was a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity.

He also met his wife, the former Kathleen Upton Byrns, while at Duke.

McClendon's first job after Duke was as an accountant.

He was inspired to move from accounting to the energy business after reading an article in The Wall Street Journal about two men selling their Anadarko Basin well stake for $100 million.

McClendon worked as a landman at Jaytex Oil and Gas, a public company in Oklahoma City founded by his uncle, Aubrey M. Kerr, Jr. McClendon left Jaytex in November 1982 to pursue his own business in the oil and natural gas industry.

In 1983, McClendon and Tom L. Ward "threw in together" in their initial venture into oil and natural gas.

Together, they co-founded Chesapeake Energy Corporation in 1989.

McClendon and Ward were both 29 at the time.

McClendon began as chairman and chief executive officer of Chesapeake, while Ward served as president and chief financial officer.

The company began drilling its first two wells in Garvin County, Oklahoma, in May 1989.

With Chesapeake, McClendon focused on drilling wells into unconventional reservoirs such as fractured carbonates and shales and was an early adopter of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing techniques, which helped accelerate the company's fast early growth.

His focus on these new and unconventional techniques later led to him being called a "visionary leader" in the oil and natural gas industry.

He took the firm public in 1993, and in the following three years its stock was the most successful in the country, rising 274% in value from 1994 to 1997, according to The Wall Street Journal.

In 2005, Forbes Magazine named McClendon one of the country's top-performing executives for his role at Chesapeake.

McClendon was a part-owner of the National Basketball Association (NBA)'s Oklahoma City Thunder franchise, and was part of the ownership group that moved the Seattle SuperSonics to Oklahoma City in 2008.

A few years later, he was the highest paid CEO of all the S&P 500 companies in 2008, receiving a compensation package totaling $112 million.

In 2008, McClendon was notified that his shares were no longer valuable enough to back a margin loan with Goldman Sachs and other banks.

In response, McClendon was forced to sell a majority of his 31.5 million shares, comprising 94% of his stake in Chesapeake and 6% of the company.

The following year, Chesapeake offered McClendon a five-year retention contract, including a $75 million bonus.

The profile noted his high risk tolerance and cited the sale of his shares in 2008 as a reckless move.

The same year, the magazine named McClendon to its 20-20 Club, comprising the eight CEOs of public companies who had delivered annualized returns of more than 20% over a 20-year period.

McClendon dismissed those who described him as a risk-loving wildcatter.

Chesapeake continued to grow its gas production under McClendon from 5 million to 2.5 billion cubic feet per day from 2009 to 2013.

Chesapeake's discovery of large reserves of natural gas was reported to have helped reduce natural gas prices to consumers in the U.S.

In 2011, Forbes called McClendon "America's most reckless billionaire" in a cover story on his career.

"If I wanted to always do the most popular thing, then I'd be a follower," he said in 2012.

"The funny thing is that I don't consider myself a gambler at all. A gambler is somebody who just closes their eyes and rolls the dice. We don't do that".

In a 2012 opinion piece discussing the development of the domestic oil and natural gas industry of the U.S. in the first decade of the 21st century, the former United States Secretary of Energy and Houston mayor Bill White described McClendon as "at the forefront of those heroes" of the American natural gas industry.

On March 1, 2016, McClendon was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of conspiring "to rig bids for the purchase of oil and natural gas leases in northwest Oklahoma".

He died the following day, March 2, 2016, in a single-vehicle collision.