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Tim Dunn (businessman)

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Tim Dunn
Born
Timothy Marvin Dunn

1955 (age 68–69)
Littlefield, Texas, U.S.
Alma materTexas Tech University
OccupationBusinessman
Spouse
Terri Spannaus
​
(m. 1977)​
Children6, including David Dunn
Websitewww.timdunn.org

Timothy Marvin Dunn (born 1955) is an American billionaire businessman. He is the chief executive officer of CrownQuest Operating, an oil and gas business he co-founded in 1996. He is influential in Texas politics, and is a major financial backer of various politically conservative causes and organizations. As of July 2024, Forbes estimated his net worth at US$2.2 billion.[1]

Early life

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Tim Dunn was born to Joe and Thelma Dunn. Dunn grew up in Big Spring, Texas, the youngest of four boys, him 10 years after the other three.[2] He was an Eagle Scout, graduated from Big Spring High School in 1974, and earned a degree in chemical engineering from Texas Tech University in 1978.[3] In high school, he played basketball, was a member of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and played guitar in a band called the Scrub Brotherhood.[2]

Career

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Dunn began his career as an engineer at ExxonMobil, where he worked from 1978 to 1980. He went on to work in banking at First City National Bank in Midland, where he stayed until 1987. During his time with First City, he was senior vice president and manager of oil and gas lending.[4] Dunn then was an executive at Parker & Parsley Petroleum until 1995, where he became chief financial officer.[5] While at Parker & Parsley Petroleum, he oversaw securities transactions and became a supporter of tort reform.[3]

In 1996, Dunn founded his own oil and gas company which became known as CrownQuest Operating.[6] Dunn is CrownQuest's chief executive officer. CrownQuest controls significant portions of the Permian Basin and was the eighth-largest oil producer in Texas in 2022.[2] In 2013, Dunn was named as top CEO of a large company by the Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners Association and Texas Monthly magazine.[7] Dunn is a billionaire.[8] Some of Dunn's wealth arose from acquiring cheap leases in the Permian Basin multiple years before the process of fracking allowed for the extraction of economical amounts of oil and gas.[2] Dunn sold CrownQuest to Occidental Petroleum in December 2023, in a deal valued at $12.4 billion.[9]

Political involvement

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Dunn is influential in state and local politics in Texas[10] and has been called the most effective political donor in Texas,[11] being the largest individual source of campaign funds in Texas in 2022 and 2023.[2] A backer of conservative causes,[6] he has spent millions of dollars encouraging the Texas Republican Party and Texas Legislature to become more conservative.[6][10][12][13]

He was a delegate in 1996 to the state's Republican convention.[2]

In 2002, he donated to a PAC that supported bills prohibiting same-sex marriages and adoptions.[2] Dunn opposed a 2006 Texas tax reform proposal to cut property taxes and replace them with new business taxes. He presented a proposal to the Texas Tax Reform Commission showing how school property taxes could be eliminated by using surplus tax revenue and curbing spending.[3]

In 2006, he formed and became the primary financial backer of the conservative advocacy group Empower Texans[14][15][2] to fight a tax on investor-financed oil wells.[9] Dunn serves on the board of the Community News Foundation, a media organization that publishes the Texas Scorecard.[16] Dunn is a founding board member of Citizens for Self-Governance, which spearheads the Convention of States project, a national effort seeking to call an Article V convention to propose amendments to the U.S. Constitution.[3] He is also a member of the board of directors of the Lucy Burns Institute.[17]

Dunn is vice chairman of the board of directors at the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF).[12][13] He helped to found the Center for Effective Criminal Justice at TPPF. The center is part of the Right on Crime movement; it advocates criminal justice reform and emphasizes restorative justice and alternatives to incarceration to reduce the prisoner population.[18][19][20] Dunn supported juvenile-justice reform legislation in 2011.[13]

Dunn has given almost USD$10 million to the Defend Texas Liberty PAC, which spends its money challenging Republican incumbents it views as insufficiently conservative.[21] Nearly all of his donations during 2022 and 2023 went to the PAC, and Dunn is the majority funder of the PAC.[2] As of August 2022, Federal Election Commission data showed that Dunn had made more than 300 political donations since 2008.[8] After Defend Texas Liberty President Jonathan Stickland was found to have met with white supremacist Nick Fuentes, Stickland stepped down as president. While Defend Texas Liberty is still a functioning PAC for the 2024 election cycle, much of Dunn's funding went to a newly formed PAC: Texans United for a Conservative Majority. The group helped candidates win multiple Texas House primary races in open seats as well as in challenges against incumbents in 2024.[22][23][2]

Dunn gave $5 million to the super PAC Make America Great Again Inc. making him one of Donald Trump's largest donors. He has also provided funding to America First Legal and the Center for Renewing America, to conservative groups. Since 2021, Dunn has been a board member of the America First Policy Institute, a group formed to promote former President Trump's policy agenda.[9]

The Convention of States Project, a group proposing to change the constitution via a constitutional convention, is partly funded by Dunn, who has been involved with the group since its inception.[9]

Educational and religious involvement

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Dunn co-founded the Midland Classical Academy, a nonprofit Christian school, where he is on the board of trustees[10] and was a volunteer assistant basketball coach.[2] The academy uses the Socratic method to teach a curriculum rooted in the development of western civilization.[24] Dunn is on the board of directors of Grace School of Theology, a Christian seminary with a vision to become "A Seminary to the World," and the First Liberty Institute, a Christian legal defense organization.[6][25] He is the chairman of the Christian Advisory Board of the Israel Allies Foundation, a non-governmental organization formed in 2007 by Israeli rabbi and politician Binyamin Elon to encourage cooperation among faith-based supporters of Israel in parliaments and legislatures worldwide.[26] Dunn, who Forbes called "staunchly anti-abortion", funds adoption services and foster homes for over 300 children in West Texas.[8] Texas Monthly called him "a key player in the growing Christian nationalism movement".[2] In a sermon, Dunn warned that Marxists "are increasingly becoming bolder and more brazen in their quest for tyranny" and that Christians need to oppose them.[2][9]

Personal life

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Dunn met his wife Terri Dunn (née Spannaus) while attending Texas Tech University and they married after his junior year of college,[3] on May 14, 1977.[2] They have six children, who were homeschooled.[2] Their two-year-old granddaughter, Moriah Wimberly, died in 2015.[27] In 2018, Dunn wrote a book about the experience of losing her, Yellow Balloons: Finding Power To Live Above Your Circumstances.[28][29] The Dunns reside in Midland, Texas, where they are members of Midland Bible Church. One of Dunn's sons is the Christian singer-songwriter David Dunn.[5] Terri and Tim Dunn live in Midland in a 6,000 square foot house, sharing land with some of their children.[2]

Bibliography

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  • Yellow Balloons. 2018.[9]

References

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  1. ^ "Forbes profile: Timothy Dunn". Forbes. Retrieved 12 July 2024.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Gold, Russell (March 2024) [February 14, 2024]. "The Billionaire Bully Who Wants to Turn Texas Into a Christian Theocracy". Texas Monthly. ISSN 0148-7736. Retrieved February 12, 2024.
  3. ^ a b c d e Ratcliffe, R.G. "The Power Issue: Tim Dunn Is Pushing the Republican Party Into the Arms of God". Texas Monthly. Retrieved 29 January 2022.
  4. ^ "Earth scientists schedule meeting". San Angelo Standard-Times. 14 July 1985. Retrieved 29 January 2022.
  5. ^ a b Dunn, Tim. "My Life". Tim Dunn. Retrieved 25 July 2014.
  6. ^ a b c d Batheja, Aman (2014-05-11). "In Tim Dunn, Far Right Has Big Spender Who Gets Results". Texas Tribune. Retrieved 25 July 2014.
  7. ^ McEwen, Mella (December 2013). "Midlanders among Top Producers recognized by TIPRO". Midland Reporter-Telegram. Retrieved 25 July 2014.
  8. ^ a b c Helman, Christopher (August 18, 2022). "Crude Clairvoyant: Texas' New Bible-Thumping Oil Billionaire". Forbes. Retrieved 28 March 2023.
  9. ^ a b c d e f Kofman, Ava (October 2, 2024). "How Two Billionaire Preachers Remade Texas Politics". The New York Times Magazine. Retrieved October 8, 2024.
  10. ^ a b c Mann, Dave (October 2, 2012). "Who Really Runs Texas?". Texas Observer. Retrieved 25 July 2014.
  11. ^ "Dunn plays to win when it comes to limited government". Midland Reporter-Telegram. 2011-05-13. Retrieved 25 July 2014.
  12. ^ a b Blakeslee, Nate (January 2013). "Primary Targets". Texas Observer. Retrieved 25 July 2014.
  13. ^ a b c Kilday Hart, Patricia (2011-05-22). "Texas lawmakers in lockstep on juvenile-justice reform efforts". Houston Chronicle. Retrieved 25 July 2014.
  14. ^ Platoff, Emma (29 January 2019). "In the Texas House, they're seen as lobbyists. In the Senate, they sit at the press table". Texas Tribune. Retrieved 13 October 2020.
  15. ^ Batheja, Aman (May 10, 2014). "A Big Spender Aims to Push State Politics Further Right". New York Times. Retrieved 14 October 2020.
  16. ^ Bartholomew, Jem (September 19, 2022). "The rise and rise of partisan local newsrooms". Columbia Journalism Review. Retrieved 28 March 2023.
  17. ^ "Board of Directors". Lucy Burns Institute. Retrieved 25 July 2014.
  18. ^ King, Jr., Neil (2013-06-21). "As Prisons Squeeze Budgets, GOP Rethinks Crime Focus". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 25 July 2014.
  19. ^ May, Ashley (February 2013). "The Philanthropy Roundtable Goes to Prison". Philanthropy Roundtable. Retrieved 25 July 2014.
  20. ^ Dagan, David (November–December 2012). "The Conservative War on Prisons". Washington Monthly. Retrieved 25 July 2014.
  21. ^ Bengani, Priyanjana (October 31, 2022). "'Pink slime' network gets $1.6M election boost from PACs backed by oil-and-gas, shipping magnates". Columbia Journalism Review.
  22. ^ "After Fuentes scandal, Texas billionaires fund new PAC to support conservative candidates". Texas Tribune. January 24, 2024.
  23. ^ "Amid white supremacist scandal, far-right billionaire powerbrokers see historic election gains in Texas". Texas Tribune. March 8, 2024.
  24. ^ Smith, Morgan (2014-05-14). "In Midland, a political donor with a private school". Midland Reporter-Telegram. Retrieved 25 July 2014.
  25. ^ "Board of Trustees". Grace School of Theology. Retrieved 25 July 2014.
  26. ^ "IAF Christian Advisory Board". Israel Allies Foundation. Retrieved 10 July 2019.
  27. ^ "In Memory of Moriah Wimberly". Timdunn.org. Retrieved 13 October 2015.
  28. ^ Dunn, Tim (June 12, 2018). "The Colossians 3:23 Power of Your Ordinary Life". Charisma Magazine. Retrieved 12 July 2018.
  29. ^ "Yellow Balloons". Yellow Balloons. Retrieved 12 July 2018.
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