Harold Hamm

Harold Hamm was born in 1945 in rural Oklahoma, the thirteenth child of sharecropper parents. He started working in the oil business as a laborer before founding Continental Resources in 1967. While Continental initially focused on conventional oil exploration, Hamm recognized the potential of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing in the Bakken shale formation of North Dakota, beginning aggressive development there in the early 2000s. His bet on the Bakken paid off enormously as production grew from tens of thousands to over a million barrels per day, helping to reshape US and global oil supply dynamics. Hamm became one of the wealthiest individuals in the US during the oil boom. He has been a strong advocate for US energy independence and has been politically active on energy policy issues. Continental took the company private in 2022 with Hamm as majority owner.