Serving all of the University of Michigan from the Ross School of Business
Serving all of the University of Michigan from the Ross School of Business

Clyde E. McKenzie

Principal, DE & LA Investments

Clyde McKenzie is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Tellurex Corporation of Traverse City, Michigan. Tellurex is an industry leader in product development around thermoelectric technology. He is also a co-founder of McKenzie Curtiss-Lusher & Associates LLC (“MC-L”). The firm works with privately owned businesses in management development, due diligence and strategic planning.

In 2001, Mr. McKenzie was one of three principals that created Strategic Asset Management LLC (“SAM”). SAM invested in a series of real estate syndicates and other businesses in Europe and in the United States. SAM founded, and MC-L manages, Nexus Resources LLC, an oil and gas exploration company. In 2011, MC-L founded Blind Squirrel Partners LLC, a second oil and gas producer. In 2014, MC-L formed BSP II in a private offering and then organized Nexus, Blind Squirrel and BSP II under a holding company. That company is focused on oil and gas property acquisition and development in Western Oklahoma.

Mr. McKenzie and his son, a Michigan graduate and attorney in Colorado, are building the McKenzie Family Partnership by acquiring diversified holdings in oil and gas, real estate and non-operating ownership in privately held industrial companies and early stage technology plays.

Prior to his experience in forming and managing new companies, Mr. McKenzie was an executive in various capacities in commercial banking, in oil and gas exploration and production and in the natural gas pipeline and services industries for over 25 years. His last assignment in banking was as manager of the energy lending group of First Interstate Bank of Denver (now a Wells Fargo bank). He managed Business Development and, subsequently, Treasury and Finance reporting to the Chairman of Apache Corporation, one of the largest independent energy companies that explores for, develops and produces oil and natural gas worldwide (NYSE:APA). He was Chief Financial Officer of KN Energy, Inc., an integrated energy services provider, when KN acquired Kinder Morgan, Inc. (now the successor company).

He has served as a director of a variety of both public and privately held energy companies and on the boards of energy industry and community organizations. Currently, he is an Emeritus Director of the Anti-Defamation League in the Rocky Mountain region.

Mr. McKenzie resides in Boulder, Colorado and Empire, Michigan. He holds Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan where he and his wife, Harriet, have endowed a scholarship for in-state undergraduate students in financial need.