The star of Broadway shows like “The Will Rogers Follies,” “My One and Only,” and “A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine,” Houston born Tommy Tune came back home to celebrate a successful career there. He performed in Houston’s Miller Outdoor Theatre, but afterwards he was brought to the home of Tony Petrello, the leader of an oil company who was present at the performance. Petrello showed Tune around his estate and had conversations about both business and leisure. Petrello has been supporting artistic productions like theater and concerts over the years, but he’s also gone beyond that.
Most people know Petrello as one of America’s wealthiest oil executives since he’s been in charge of Nabors Industries’ main leadership core for 7 years but has been with them for more than 20 years. Part of his responsibility has been overseeing the deployment and installation of high-powered rigs and pipelines at various drilling sites. He also has been pushing for more robotic and automated drilling with new series. Nabors Industries averages over $2 billion a year in production revenue and is also now merged with Tesco Corporation, a merger that Petrello helped complete. His highest recorded compensation in one year was $68.7 million, much of which was in bonuses, stocks and equity, but it earned him the title of top-paid boss that year.
Tony Petrello is a graduate of Yale University, and his time there was talked about by an old roommate of his who recalled how he studied under the notable professor Serge Lange. He received high honors in mathematics, the field he excelled in at the time. But Petrello decided his numbers skills could be put best to use in finance law, so he went to law school and then became an attorney for a major New York City firm known as Baker & McKenzie. He practiced there for 13 years before the biggest opportunity presented itself in 1991 to become an oil company executive.
Along with supporting fine arts and education in Houston, Anthony Petrello is also involved in healthcare philanthropy. He’s the father of a young girl named Carena who has cerebral palsy and needs a wheelchair to get around. Petrello had some of the toughest moments realizing that Carena would never have a normal life, but he desired to help other children not have to go through what she did. So he got to know the doctors and research teams at the Texas Children’s Hospital neurological institute, and he gave their foundation $7 million to aid the discovery of cures for brain disorders.