
Richard Kinder
CEO of Kinder Morgan
Education
- BA - University of Missouri. In college
- JD - University of Missouri. In college
Overview
Richard Kinder is an American businessman. He is the co-founder and executive chairman of Kinder Morgan Inc, Inc.(KMI) an energy and pipeline corporation.
Career :
He began his career in the energy business as an attorney with Florida Gas Transmission, which eventually became Enron Corporation, after a series of mergers He had been friends with its founder, Kenneth Lay, in college. From 1990 to December 1996, he served as its president and COO. He resigned from Enron in 1996 to start a new pipeline company with college friend William V. Morgan. They purchased Enron Liquids Pipeline for $40 million. They also merged with KN Energy. After a number of acquisitions, the most prominent being El Paso Corporation, Kinder Morgan became the largest midstream energy company in North America.
He is the chairman of the board of trustees of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and serves as chairman of the Kinder Foundation. He previously served as a member of the board of Baker Hughes, Transocean and Waste Management, as a national board member of the Smithsonian Institution and is a past chairman of the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America. A Republican, he campaigned for Bush-Quayle in 1992, for Bush-Cheney in 2004, for John McCain in 2008, and for Kay Bailey Hutchison and Tom DeLay.
In 2014, Kinder was listed on Forbes Richest People in the US. Kinder is one of seven self-made billionaires from Houston on the list, with a net worth of $11 billion. In 2020, he was ranked No. 103 on the Forbes 400 list of the richest people in America.
Early Life
Richard Kinder was born October 19, 1944 in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, in 1944. He received a BA in 1966 and a JD in 1968, both from the University of Missouri. In college, he was a member of the Sigma Nu fraternity.
A $25 million grant from the Kinder Foundation to the University of Missouri in October 2015 went to establish the university’s Kinder Institute on Constitutional Democracy. In November 2019, the foundation granted an additional $10 million to support new degree opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students at the Kinder Institute on Constitutional Democracy and the College of Arts and Science. Kinder Foundation gave an additional $25 million in November 2022 to expand faculty and popular program offerings, bringing the total philanthropy from Rich and Nancy Kinder and the foundation to $60 million.
Career
- Kinder Morgan - CEO
Other Activites
In 2015, Kinder and his wife Nancy donated $2 million to a Super PAC supporting Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush.