NTEA Announces Green Truck Summit Speaker

The National Truck Equipment Assocation (NTEA) recently announced that Texas billionaire, energy activist and entrepreneur T. Boone Pickens will give the keynote address at The Green Truck Summit on March 3. The summit will be held in conjunction with the 45th Annual NTEA Convention and the Work Truck Show (March 3-6) at Chicago’s McCormick Place.

Pickens is the founder and chairman of BP Capital Management and author of the autobiography "The First Billion Is the Hardest" and "The Luckiest Guy in the World." In 2006, he received the Horatio Alger Award, which recognizes people who overcome adversity and humble beginnings to achieve success. He was named “CEO of the Decade” by Financial World in 1989 and one of the “100 Most Influential People of the Petroleum Century” by Oil and Gas Investor. Forbes ranks Pickens as the 117th richest person in the United States. A noted philanthropist, he has donated more than $700 million — nearly a third of his net worth — to charity.

Pickens is on a mission to break the “stranglehold” of foreign oil on the United States economy. After 35 years of lobbying the federal government to form a comprehensive energy policy for the country, he introduced his own plan in July 2008. The Pickens Plan calls for building wind farms to provide up to 22 percent of the country’s electricity, developing a 21st century backbone electrical grid and using domestic natural gas as fuel to power fleet vehicles and heavy-duty trucks. He has spent over $58 million promoting the plan.