While celebrating its 50th anniversary last month, the Maguire Energy Institute at Southern Methodist University’s Cox School of Business honored Energy Transfer Co-Founder and Executive Chairman Kelcy Warren with the L. Frank Pitts Award for Energy Leadership and Innovation.

Given annually to continue Frank Pitts' legacy of entrepreneurship, ethical leadership and energy industry innovation, the award winner is always an individual who personally demonstrates outstanding energy industry leadership and innovation. And, to emphasize his contributions to the field of energy, the SMU team sat down with Energy Transfer’s co-CEO Tom Long, Executive Vice President of Gas Gathering & Optimization Brian Beebe, and Director of Sales Cliff Harris as they reflected on Warren’s contributions to the industry. Here’s what they had to say. 

An Early Visionary

Reflecting on the entrepreneur’s inspiration for starting Energy Transfer, Harris recalls a day spent fishing and relaxing at Warren’s home in Palestine, TX when Kelcy turned the conversation to shop talk. Harris remembers that “Kelcy said, ‘Did you know that electricity has been deregulated?’ And I said, ‘No.’ [Then] he said, ‘You know, Cliff, this is going to create a great opportunity for us.’”

In the wake of that seemingly casual conversation, Harris says, “We ended up starting Energy Transfer Group, which is the power side of Energy Transfer partners, but it turned out to be just a great idea. He was so right.” And that was just the beginning of Warren’s smart calls in the field. 

Several years later, in the wake of the 2001 Enron collapse, Beebe notes that the situation created “a lot of opportunities for Kelcy and his vision, because shortly after…the industry didn't want to own assets, and Kelcy [recognized] that assets are going to be worth something.” As such, following such wise decisions, Long notes, “To see the absolute success that we've had with him made some comment to him, ‘You sure know how to turn a lot of assets into gold.’" In response, Warren simply said, "Well, I'm just lucky."

More than Just Luck

While Kelcy Warren is modest about his visionary leadership, Harris is less circumspect. He says that Warren is truly “a guy that sees way ahead. He knows how to anticipate…Kelcy really has perfected that.” Indeed, says Long, Warren is very “intuitive. [The word] captures his ability to be able to anticipate, to be able to have that vision.” 

Of course, Warren has done more than simply look ahead to the future. In fact, he has taken great strides to build up the future of energy in Texas, from expanding Energy Transfer’s operations to endowing a new Resource and Energy Engineering program at the University of Texas Arlington and, at home, inspiring his own family to continue growing the industry. 

Says his son Klyde Warren, “I'm studying business, specifically entrepreneurship with a minor in energy…I think unfortunately there is a negative narrative right now as it comes to fossil fuels and the energy industry, and I look at that as a really fortunate opportunity that there's a gap that I hope to fill, that there aren't as many young people as there should be that are excited about that industry…I'm pretty happy about that opportunity to go and fill that gap.” 

Noting Klyde’s reflections on the energy industry’s current image problem, Kelcy Warren says that he isn’t worried about the future. Indeed, he believe, “This is a sustainable business. It'll be around until all of us are gone. And it's something that I think, especially young people now coming out of college, I think they ought to consider energy as not something that's fading out, but something that's just only going to grow.”

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