Harold Hamm

If you don’t know Harold Hamm, you should. He and the technology he pioneered might be the biggest game changer of all. We’ve all heard about Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and others whose innovations have changed our world. But arguably none of it could have happened had not Harold brought billions of barrels of American oil and gas online through mastering horizontal drilling. It’s what he likes to call the American Energy Renaissance. In a matter of a few decades, Harold went about proving the conventional wisdom wrong. America was not running out of oil and gas. In fact, just the opposite was true. America was and is an energy superpower, ensuring abundant, affordable, and reliable energy for decades to come. 

The thirteenth child of an Oklahoma sharecropper, he processed what all great American entrepreneurs have—a sense of destiny and a desire to change the world for the better. He went from owning a single mud truck purchased with borrowed money to a man who advised presidents on America’s energy resources and policies. 

When he declared America could be energy independent over a decade ago, nearly all said it was impossible. Yet in 2019, we were. He championed the end of the export ban on American Oil and Gas which led to a trillion-dollar swing annually to the good for our economy and American families. The company he founded fifty-six years ago, Continental Resources, now operates in four of America’s premier basins and is one of the largest producers of oil and gas in the United States. Harold recently took the company private because he loves independence. 

Harold has given generously to universities across America, including millions to the University of Oklahoma’s Harold Hamm Diabetes Center. He and Continental gave $50 million to establish the Hamm Institute of American Energy in partnership with Oklahoma State University with the goal of solving the world’s greatest energy challenges.