Oklahoma: A Story Through Her People

Additionally, to bring worldwide attention
to the subject of energy policies and Hefner’s
thoughts on natural gas abundance, in 2013,
China’s CITIC Press published the Chinese
version of The Grand Energy Transition book.
Hefner has been active—over many
decades—in numerous philanthropic, artistic
and cultural endeavors. In 1980 he donated a
building to Ballet Oklahoma for their dance
studios and in 1981 won the Forbes “Business
in the Arts” award. In the mid-1980s he
began collecting contemporary Chinese oil
paintings from the historic and artistically
explosive period following the Cultural
Revolution in China and today Hefner
and his wife MeiLi continue to develop
the world renowned Hefner Collection
(www.hefnercollection.com). In 1982, Hefner
brought the Phillips Collection—the first
major internationally famous collection—to
the Oklahoma Museum of Art in Oklahoma
City and in 1989 he acquired a large, historic
piece of the Berlin Wall, as it was coming
down, holding in Oklahoma City, the first
of several Berlin Wall exhibitions. In 1997,
he brought his Hefner Collection to Norman
for an exhibition at the Fred Jones, Jr.,
Museum at OU. Mr. and Mrs. Hefner have
established the Robert and MeiLi Hefner
Foundation (www.hefnerfoundation.org),
supporting the “Hefner Initiative” program,
which currently funds trips to China and
Singapore for outstanding students from
selected high schools, including the Oklahoma
School of Science and Mathematics (OSSM)
in Oklahoma City.
Hefner has historically been closely
involved with, supported and is a member
of many organizations and institutions—
statewide, domestically, and internationally.
He is a Fellow National in The Explorers
Club, a Fellow of the Royal Geographical
Society in London, on the International
Council at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science
and International Affairs, on Singapore’s
International Advisory Panel on Energy, was
a former advisory board member of the
International Institute for Applied Systems
Analysis in Austria, and is founding director
and president of The Bradshaw Foundation
(www.bradshawfoundation.com).
During the 1970s and through the 1990s
Hefner worked tirelessly for the Oklahoma
energy industry and was, variously, chairman
of the Oklahoma Energy Advisory Council,
chairman of the Independent Gas Producers
Committee, on the board of directors of the
Oklahoma Petroleum Council, Oklahoma’s
Representative to the Interstate Oil Compact
Commission, on the board of directors of
the Mid-Continent Oil & Gas Association,
and a founder of the University of Oklahoma
Energy Center. Hefner was inducted into the
Western Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 1980
and into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in
2010, where he was preceded by his father,
Robert A. Hefner, Jr., (inducted in 1973) and
his grandfather, Judge Robert A. Hefner
(inducted in 1949). Robert A. Hefner III has
3 children, 7 grandchildren and 4 greatgrandchildren—all
Oklahomans, with several
continuing the family tradition by following
him into the energy business.
Above and below: Robert A. Hefner III.
O K L A H O M A P A R T N E R S
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