Energy pioneer and civic leader Frank Pitts died Monday evening at his Dallas home after a brief battle with prostate cancer. He was 98.
Soft-spoken rather than brash, Lloyd Franklin Pitts did not fit the outside world's picture of a Texas wildcatter.
"But he was the genuine article," said his son-in-law, William "Bill" Custard, president and CEO of Pitts Oil Co.
A memorial service will be at 11 a.m. Friday at Park Cities Baptist Church, and a reception will follow at noon.
During the depths of the Great Depression, Mr. Pitts lived in Europe, where he built the thriving Nu-Enamel paint business. He began to dabble in the oil business as a hedge against the inflation he predicted World War II would bring.
"By 1940, I was president of the paint company and making quite a bit of money for a country boy," Mr. Pitts told Oil and Gas Investor magazine in 2008, "so I started drilling wells."
Over the next seven decades, he drilled more than 3,000 and became an active voice of the energy industry in Washington, D.C. He spent 20 years pushing for deregulation of natural gas prices. The law that finally passed in 1978 paved the way for the recent boom in domestic gas production.
Although he helped shape the modern energy industry, Mr. Pitts was raised on a farm in Mississippi where mules pulled the plow and water was drawn from a well.
"By the time he was grown, he had lived through those difficult times, so he was very strong, tough and mature," said Ross Perot, his friend of more than 40 years. "More importantly, he was honorable."
At the height of Mr. Pitts' activity, Pitts Oil Co. and its affiliated businesses had offices and operations in 11 states. He was the president and largest stockholder of the geophysical firm Exploration Surveys Inc., and he galvanized lobbying by the Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners Association (TIPRO), eventually serving as its president and later chairman.
"No one has more influence on natural gas policy in Washington than Frank Pitts," former Congressman Kent Hance told The Dallas Morning News in 1988.
"He was someone who felt that he had to give something back to the industry," oilman Cary Maguire said. "Instead of just staying home and reaping the rewards, he spent a lot of time, effort and expense to go around the country and talk up the importance of having a national energy policy."
During the '70s oil crisis, Mr. Pitts was a staple on TV programs such as the CBS Evening News, Firing Line with William F. Buckley , the Today show and The MacNeil/Lehrer Report.
Only a few weeks ago, Mr. Pitts was sitting in on meetings at Pitts Oil Co.
"He was still attending things the best he could up until very recently," Mr. Custard said. "He was as competitive as you could get. But on the other end of that spectrum, he was the consummate gentleman. You didn't need a signed instrument with Frank. He was from the school that your word is your bond."
He and his wife, Martha, had two children, a daughter, Linda Pitts Custard, and a son, Lloyd Franklin Pitts Jr., who died in 1945 at age 3 from spinal meningitis. Mrs. Pitts died in 1993.
Moving to Dallas in 1948, Mr. Pitts and his wife were civic leaders supporting the Dallas Opera, the Park Cities Rotary Club and the Dallas Citizens Council. Mr. Pitts was chairman of the Baylor University Medical Center Foundation and chairman of the World Affairs Council of Greater Dallas.
He endowed four presidential scholarships at Southern Methodist University. Eight years ago, Mr. Maguire and his family and the Custards and their children honored Mr. Pitts by jointly endowing the Frank Pitts Oil and Gas Lecture Series at SMU's Maguire Energy Institute.
"We wanted to name it after him because he represents the true spirit of the independent oil operator," Mr. Maguire said. "He was an entrepreneur from day one and was still working in his 90s."
Mr. Pitts drilled all over the Fort Worth Basin yet had to be convinced by George Mitchell of Mitchell Energy that gas could be profitably recovered from the area's Barnett Shale formation. He quickly became a believer. To date, Pitts companies have drilled or participated in drilling more than 500 Barnett Shale wells.
"Ten years ago, who would have thought we'd have all these gas wells in Denton County, in Wise County?" he said last year in an interview with Oil and Gas Investor. "Oh, you've got me fired up. Too bad I'm almost 100."
Mr. Pitts is survived by his daughter and son-in-law, three grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
Memorial donations can be made to the World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth, 325 North St. Paul St., Suite 2200, Dallas, Texas 75201; Baylor Health Care System Foundation, 3600 Gaston Ave., Barnett Tower - Suite 100, Dallas, Texas 75246; Maguire Energy Institute, SMU - Cox School of Business, P.O. Box 750333, Dallas, Texas 75275; or a charity of the donor's choice.
