Raymond Plank, founder and former CEO of Apache, died on November 8 at the age of 96, Reuters reported.

Plank established Apache Corporation in 1954 in Houston, in cooperation with two friends, turning the corporation into a global energy firm.

Apache financed its drilling operations via individual partnership, yet Plank kept looking for a more permanent financing until he came across a law firm that helped draft the company’s first publicly-traded partnership in 1981, said Roger Plank, Raymond Plank’s son.

Plank was known for suggesting “outlandish ideas to get people thinking,” said Tony Lentini, a former Apache executive. In 1980s when Apache found oil in Egypt’s Western Desert, there were no pipelines back then. Plank persuaded the Egyptian government to create a truck network in order to transport thousands of barrels of oil per day around the country.