Business honors

Dallas sports tycoon joins prestigious Texas Business Hall of Fame

Tom Hicks (left) is a hall of famer.

Photo by Matt Pearce

The Texas Business Hall of Fame Foundation has inducted six new Texans to its prestigious ranks — including a notable name in Dallas business and sports.

Dallas-based Thomas O. Hicks — along with Austin-based Whitney Wolfe Herd and Houston's John Arnold, Ric Campo, Jeffery D. Hildebrand, and Paul W. Hobby — will be honored at Texas Business Hall of Fame Foundation's 40th Anniversary and Induction Dinner on November 3.

Former Dallas Stars and Dallas Rangers owner, Hicks is the chairman, founder, and partner of Hicks Holdings LLC, a family office that owns and manages real estate, corporate assets and investments, including a private equity firm.

Accomplishments cited in his Texas Business Hall of Fame bio: "From 1995-2011, Mr. Hicks was the owner and chairman of the Dallas Stars, a National Hockey League club. During his ownership, the Club captured seven Division Championships, three Western Conference regular season crowns, two Presidents’ Trophies as the team with the best regular season record, two consecutive trips to the Stanley Cup Finals and the 1999 Stanley Cup Championship.

"He was also instrumental in the development and building of the American Airlines Center (“AAC”) in Dallas, TX which opened in July 2001.

"[He] was also the owner and chairman of the board of the Texas Rangers, a Major League baseball club and of the Rangers Ballpark in Arlington from June 1998 to August 2010. During his ownership, the club captured three American West Division titles and was the 2010 American League Champion, advancing to the World Series the same year."

Hicks is no longer involved with either team.

“The Texas Business Hall of Fame is pleased to announce its six inductees for 2022," says TBHF Chair Amanda Brock in a news release. "Inductees are recognized as trailblazers in business and exemplary leaders who have made significant contributions in their local communities and beyond, through both philanthropic and civic engagement. Although inductees can be nominated by anyone from the general public, they are selected by their peers and determined by a majority vote by Hall of Fame members."

The TBHF honors business leaders across the state by celebrating and telling their stories. The organization also runs the Future Legends Scholar & Veteran Award Program that grants forty $15,000 awards to scholars and veterans who demonstrate entrepreneurship and innovation at 24 universities throughout the Lone Star State. Both the scholars and the six honorees will celebrated this fall.

“The selection process, combined with the organization’s emphasis on both economic and social impact makes this one of the most prestigious business honors in the state,” says TBHF Legend and the 2022 Master of Ceremonies, Richard Fisher.

Here's more information on the other five nominees:

Austin-based Whitney Wolfe Herd is the founder and CEO of Bumble Inc., the parent company that operates Badoo, Fruitz, and Bumble, three of the world’s fastest growing dating apps worldwide. She led Bumble’s IPO in 2021 as the youngest women CEO to ever take a company public.

Houstonian John Arnold is the founder of Centaurus Capital LP, an energy-focused, family office investment fund. He also created Arnold Ventures, a philanthropic investment firm focused on health care, education, criminal justice, and public finance.

Houston-based Camden Property Trust CEO Ric Campo has also sat on the board of directors of several Houston organizations, including Central Houston, Inc., Greater Houston Partnership, Baker Ripley, and The Coalition for the Homeless, and more.

Jeffery D. Hildebrand, is the executive chairman and founder of Houston-based Hilcorp Energy Company, Harvest Midstream Company, and JDH Capital. He serves on the boards of Central Houston, Inc., the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, Houston Police Foundation, Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, Chairman of The University of Texas Investment Management Company, and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission.

Houstonian Paul W. Hobby is a founding partner of Genesis Park and GP Capital. He's served as the chairman of the Texas Ethics Commission, the Greater Houston Partnership, the Houston Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas ,and the Texas General Services Commission.

The awards dinner, presented by Texas Capital Bank, will be hosted in Houston at Hilton Americas on November 3. The dinner is preceded by a private awards luncheon, sponsored by Deloitte, for the Hall of Fame's 40 2022 Scholar & Veteran Award recipients.

Last year's dinner honored six Texans in November 2021, including Dallas businessmen Mark Cuban, John Goff, Morton Meyerson, and Randall Stephenson.

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This article originally ran on our sister site InnovationMap.

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Under the Sun

Solar power poised to surpass coal for the first time in Texas

Photo by Bill Mead on Unsplash

Utility-scale solar generation has been increasing steadily in Texas.

Solar power promises to shine even brighter in Texas this year. A new forecast from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) indicates that for the first time, annual power generation from utility-scale solar will surpass annual power generation from coal across the territory covered by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT).

Solar generation is expected to reach 78 billion kilowatt-hours in 2026 in the ERCOT grid, compared with 60 billion kilowatt-hours for coal, the EIA forecast says. The ERCOT grid supplies power to about 90 percent of Texas.

“Utility-scale solar generation has been increasing steadily in ERCOT as solar capacity additions help meet rapid electricity demand growth,” the forecast says.

Although natural gas remains the dominant source of electricity generation in ERCOT, accounting for an average 44 percent of electricity generation from 2021 to 2025, solar’s share of the generation mix rose from 4 percent to 12 percent. During the same period, coal’s share dropped from 19 percent to 13 percent.

EIA predicts about 40 percent of U.S. solar capacity, or 14 billion kilowatt-hours, added in 2026 will come from Texas.

Although EIA expects annual solar generation to exceed annual coal generation in 2026, solar surpassed coal in ERCOT on a monthly basis for the first time in March 2025, when solar generation totaled 4.33 billion kilowatt-hours and coal’s totaled 4.16 billion kilowatt-hours. Solar generation continued to exceed that of coal until August of that year.

“In 2026, we estimate that solar exceeded coal for the first time in March, and we forecast generation from solar installations in ERCOT will continue to exceed that from coal until December, when coal generation exceeds solar,” says EIA. “We expect solar generation to exceed that of coal for every month in 2027 except January and December.”

For 2027, EIA forecasts annual solar generation of 99 billion kilowatt-hours in the ERCOT grid, compared with 66 billion kilowatt-hours of annual coal generation.

In April, ERCOT projected almost 368 billion kilowatt-hours of demand in ERCOT’s territory by 2032. ERCOT’s all-time peak demand hit 85.5 billion kilowatt-hours in August 2023.

“Texas is experiencing exceptional growth and development, which is reshaping how large load demand is identified, verified, and incorporated into long-term planning,” ERCOT President and CEO Pablo Vegas said. “As a result of a changing landscape, we believe this forecast to be higher than expected … load growth.”

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This article first appeared on our sister site, EnergyCapitalHTX.

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