Richard Kinder is an American businessman with an estimated net worth of $7.40 billion in May 2019. Born on October 19, 1944 in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, he earned his B.A. in 1966 and J.D. in 1968, both from the University of Missouri. His career began as a lawyer and real-estate investor in Houston, Texas. He soon filed for bankruptcy and joined the Enron Corporation where he has been friends with founder Kenneth Lay since college. He was the President and COO at Enron from 1990 to December 1996.

After Enron, Kinder started a new pipeline company with former college classmate William V. Morgan. They bought Enron Liquids Pipeline for $40 million and merged with KN Energy. Their company is known as the Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, founded in 1997, which now owns the largest natural pipeline network in the U.S. with some 75,000 miles of lines. It also has 180 storage terminals capable of handling 2.5 million barrels of oil and 55 billion cubic feet of gas a day.

He served as a board member of Baker Hughes. He has also served on the board of directors of Transocean, Waste Management, Inc. He is the chairman of the board of Interstate Natural Gas Association of America and the Santa Fe Pacific Pipeline. He is the vice chairman and director of the Natural Petroleum Council. His Kinder Foundation, which is worth $78 million in assets, is devoted to enhancing the quality of life in Houston. Along with his wife, Nancy Kinder, he donated $15 million to Rice University in 2010 for the school’s Institute for Urban Research.