Clayton Williams

Clayton Wheat "Claytie" Williams, Jr. (born October 8, 1931) is an American businessman from Midland, Texas. He was the unsuccessful Republican gubernatorial nominee in 1990 against the Democratic State Treasurer Ann Richards even though Williams initially led in opinion polls by twenty points.

Early life

Williams is the son of Clayton W. Williams, Sr., a Pecos county commissioner, and the former Chicora Lee "Chic" Graham. He was born in Alpine, Texas in the Big Bend country of far West Texas, but reared in his father's native Fort Stockton, the seat of geographically large Pecos County.

He graduated from Texas A&M University in College Station in 1954 with a degree in animal husbandry. Then, as had his father during World War I, he served in the U.S. Army.

Career

Williams is an oil and natural gas man. In 1957, he followed in the business of his father, beginning in the oil fields of West Texas as a lease broker. Many of his companies were petroleum-related with interests in the exploration and production of natural gas and transportation and extraction of natural gas and natural gas liquids. In 1993, he took Clayton Williams Energy, Inc. public.