Undertakers of the Oil Patch
The death of an oil well keeps an oil-field service company alive.
Reporting and commentary on Texas businesses and the trends and innovation happening in our state
The death of an oil well keeps an oil-field service company alive.
Will deprivation, humiliation, and confrontation lead the way to a better, more confident you? A new self-help craze sweeping Texas wants you to think so.
In his dream to create a dynastic empire along the Rio Grande, Chito Longoria went against the wishes of his family and the values of his native land.
The world’s hottest restaurant chain turns into Texas’ hottest restaurant feud.
Texans are always looking for a new frontier, a place where business people can do business without worrying about a lot of bureaucrats. Want to make it in Texas today? Come to Belize.
At a time when Texas seems to have lost its gift for creating fortunes, there has emerged a group of entrepreneurs who are making money by catering to the needs of people who are going broke.
They have done it all: saved New York City and Massachusetts, written economic classics, created new companies, and turned old ones around. Now, at our request, they’re fixing Texas.
One school of thought holds that when the economy is in a nosedive, that’s the time to go into business. At least that’s what a farmer, an oilman, a developer, and a banker believe.
We gave a bunch of smart Texans $50,000. (Okay, we didn’t really, we just said we did.) The money comes with these strings attached: it has to be invested in Texas now, and the investments have to pay off by 1996.
The departure of MCC’s chief signals a new beginning for the company—and an end to Austin’s high-tech boom.
In boom times, John Connally and Ben Barnes used their political magic to build a sprawling real estate empire. Now they’re in a desperate struggle to keep themselves afloat.
A new class of self-styled experts called prosperity consultants say they have the solution to Texas’ economic bust: the bad times are all in our heads.
Let’s hear it for Dallas’ Northwood Institute, where entrepreneurialism is second only to high society fundraising.
Their business may read like a sci-fi script, but these aging astronauts, former Nasa engineers, technocrats, and high-risk junkies are serious about selling space.
North Texas bands face a tough choice: living to make music or making music for a living.
So long, OPEC. So long, $27 oil. The Merc is king now.
The continuing saga of the Hermann estate scandal was a shocking lesson in how Houston’s most-respected philanthropists, civic leaders, and biggest deal makers had abused their power.
From the heights of the Dallas social heap, they leaped to the national celebrity circuit. Rich, young, and fashionable, Twinkle and Bradley Bayoud are a case study in how to rise to the top.
The Hermann estate scandal exposed Houston’s most powerful deal makers, most respected philanthropist, and leading lawvers to the harsh glare of publicity. It was a shocking lesson in the abuses of power.
Robert Sakowitz set out to be a retail Renaissance man. Like his hero Leonardo da Vinci, he was going to do everything. And he did—including something he never imagined: fail.
People who have watched a certain prime-time soap opera think they know what goes on at the Petroleum Club. They don’t.
The real Texas technology picture is much more intricate than either the mad hype of two years ago or the dire headlines of today make it out to be.
It seems practically impossible to choose the best deal from the multitude of services offered by all the new long distance phone companies. But we’ve got their number.
A new recruit to the ranks of Mary Kay beauty consultants struggles valiantly to do his part in reaching the woman of the eighties and keeping the company in the pink.
An old hand at Pickens-watching reveals the key to the Amarillo oilman’s corporate-takeover antics.
The great Texas ranches and how they got that way.
“When the cowboys on the 06 ranch talked about losing a way of life, they often pointed to their neighbor, Clayton Williams, as an example of what they meant. He was a millionaire and an oilman, and he represented everything they hated.”
Rich old ladies who hoard their securities set the best example for managing your stocks.
When Houston’s rich and powerful join forces with environmentalists to battle big corporations, they can be fighting over only one thing. Garbage.
So you think that OPEC controls the price of oil and that the glut is hurting everybody in the oil business? Wrong. Traders on the international spot market are pulling the strings and getting rich in the process.
There are a hundred of them, and their job is invisibility. They come into giant office buildings after everyone has gone home and, if they do the job right, make the evidence of the day’s work disappear.
Roger Staubach finds happiness by swapping Rolaids for real estate.
With the help of a friendly banker and some friendlier politicians, Clinton Manges conquered might Mobil Oil and saved his empire. But not for long—it’s in jeopardy again.
Clinton Manges built his empire on brushland and oil wells, political contributions and lawsuits. His influence extends to the state capitol and oil company boardrooms. To get where he is, he studied under three masters of South Texas.
Bearing Gallic sophistication and outrageously delicious desserts, the Lenôtre family has taken Dallas and Houston by storm.
Gary Bradley, a hot young land speculator in Austin, was in the middle of a $50 million deal when he ran into an outraged environmental movement and a lobbyist with some powerful clients. The fight was on.
With the Republican convention only three months away, Dallas’ sales forces are frantically gearing up for a merchandising bonanza.
See the future on your computer: software on stocks, football, and astrology.
Hundreds of new computer companies have made Texas the likely successor to California’s Silicon Valley, and it all started with two firms in Dallas.
When Bames-Connally Investments announced plans to build apartments in a South Austin neighborhood, the residents banded together to try to stop them. They won the battle but lost the war.
They are the quirky enterprises that offer two things under one roof—like shrimp and guns, steaks and loans, or eggrolls and gasoline.
To become more than a perpetual boom town, Dallas needs a foresighted leader and astute politician. Is Starke Taylor the man?
It’s a bank-eat-bank world out there.
An Arkansas chain has refused to discount small-town buying power. Now it’s ousting local mom-and-pop operations throughout Texas and even giving K Mart a run for its money.
From his early days in Big Spring, Eugene Anderson wasn’t what he seemed; neither was the mysterious element he later claimed turned water into fuel.
The meat products business is no bed of top hogs.
Texans may secretly yearn to live east of the Mississippi or across the Atlantic, but the next best thing is a subdivision named Yorktown, Nottingham County, or village Green West.
Ed Jones rode the oil boom to a white-collar job. It was a short trip.
Don’t give up! There’s still money to be made finding oil. Up in Graham the Creswells are striking it rich with the help of Jesus and, er, creekology.
Jack Young was the eighties’ oil boom in the flesh. Unfortunately, he also personifies the aftermath of the bust.