A reporter once asked me if I considered myself a Texan or an Oklahoman. I said: “Both.” But at D CEO’s 2018 Oil & Gas Dealmakers Awards, I was a Texan.

D CEO just honored the CEOs, CFOs, and innovators who have helped make Texas the national and international center for energy activity and finance that it is today. In the room and on the stage were leaders in the energy, technology, and finance sectors. D Magazine also recognized rising star and lifetime achievement honorees. Perhaps a nod to my turning 90 this year, they generously awarded me with the 2018 Oil & Gas Lifetime Achievement Award, and I couldn’t be more honored.

I’m honored to receive this lifetime achievement award because every major turning point in my life – and there have been many – has been impacted by or has strived to impact this great state. First, I struck out on my own in 1956, founding Mesa Petroleum and building it up to one of the nation’s largest independent oil and gas companies, which I then took public in 1964. At 68, I reinvented myself and started and operated my investment fund, BP Capital, in Dallas. In 2008, I launched the Pickens Plan, a national energy plan to get us off OPEC oil and on to our own resources – like the oil, natural gas, and wind here in Texas.

It was a wonderful night of remembering how far Texas has come in these sectors, and how the future looks even brighter.