Michel T. Halbouty

Credited with discovering more than 50 oil and gas fields, he twice declared bankruptcy, but came back each time to regain wealth.

He authored hundreds of technical articles on petroleum geology, and two book-length histories of famous oil fields.

[3] He discovered his first oil field in 1931, only six weeks out of college, when as a wellsite geologist for the Yount-Lee Oil Co. he drove from the wellsite and interrupted a formal dinner party at the owner's home to persuade the owner not to abandon an apparent dry hole, but to drill deeper.

Halbouty staked his job on the result, and drilled into the prolific High Island Field in Texas.

[4] Halbouty was an outspoken proponent of increased American domestic exploration for oil and gas, rather than reliance on foreign sources.