Kenneth Lay

Kenneth Lee Lay (April 15, 1942 – July 5, 2006) was an American businessman and political donor who was the founder, chief executive officer and chairman of Enron. He was heavily involved in Enron's accounting scandal that unraveled in 2001 into the largest bankruptcy ever to that date. Lay was indicted by a grand jury and was found guilty of 10 counts of securities fraud at trial. Lay died in July 2006 while vacationing in his house near Aspen, Colorado, three months before his scheduled sentencing. A preliminary autopsy reported Lay died of a heart attack caused by coronary artery disease. His death resulted in a vacated judgment. Conspiracy theories regarding Lay's death surfaced, alleging that it was faked.

Lay left behind "a legacy of shame" characterized by "mismanagement and dishonesty". In 2009 a list posted on Portfolio.com ranked Lay as the third-worst American CEO of all time. His actions were the catalyst for subsequent and fundamental corporate reform in regard to "standards of leadership, governance, and accountability".

Lay was one of America's highest-paid CEOs; between 1998 and 2001, he collected more than $220 million in cash and stock in Enron, selling 1.7 million of those shares. However, during his trial in 2006, Lay claimed that Enron stock made up about 90% of his wealth, and that his net worth at that time was negative $250,000.

Lay was born in the Texas County, Missouri, town of Tyrone, the son of Omer and Ruth (née Rees) Lay. Lay's father was a Baptist preacher and Lay grew up in poverty after the family's general store failed. Later in Lay's childhood, his family relocated to Columbia, Missouri, and Lay attended David H. Hickman High School and the University of Missouri, where he studied economics, receiving a Bachelor of Arts in 1964 and a Master of Arts in 1965. He served as president of the Zeta Phi chapter of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity at the University of Missouri. He earned a Doctor of Philosophy in economics from the University of Houston in 1970.

He worked at Humble Oil as an economist from 1965 to 1968 in the Corporate Planning Department. In 1968, Lay entered the Officer Candidate School for the United States Navy where, from 1968 to 1971, he rose to the rank of lieutenant and was the special assistant to the Navy Comptroller and Financial Analyst at the Office of Assistant Secretary of the Navy in the Department of the Navy at The Pentagon.

Lay worked from 1971 to 1972 as a technical assistant to commissioner and vice chairman (federal energy regulator) of the Federal Power Commission and served as the energy deputy undersecretary for the United States Department of Interior until 1974. In 1974, he returned to the business world as an executive at Florida Gas Transmission and was president of Continental Resources from 1981 to 1982. In 1982, he joined Transco Energy Company, owner of the Transcontinental Pipeline, in Houston and held the positions of president, chief operating officer and director until 1984 when he became chairman and CEO of the Houston Natural Gas Company.

By the time energy was deregulated in the 1980s, Lay was already an energy company executive and he took advantage of the new climate when Omaha-based InterNorth bought his company Houston Natural Gas and changed the name to Enron in 1985.

He was also a member of the board of directors from 1993 to 2001 of Eli Lilly and Company and a director at Texas Commerce Bank. In 1996 he held negotiations to replace Robert E. Allen as the CEO of AT&T.