Baine Kerr

Baine P. Kerr was a prominent Houston lawyer who was a partner in the law firm of Baker and Botts, where he managed the corporate law department, before he joined Pennzoil. He was president of Pennzoil and on the board of directors from 1964 to 1994. He served in World War II, and graduated from the University of Texas. He married Mildred C. Kerr in 1942, with whome he would raise four children, Baine P. Kerr, Jr., John Caldwell Kerr, James Robinson Kerr, and Mary Kerr Winters.

In the 1980s he served on the "Energy Engineering Board" of the National Research Council.

In 1989 he was paid a $10 million bonus for his work on a lawsuit for Pennzoil that resulted in a $3 billion settlement from Texaco.

Kerr and his family are longtime friends of George H. W. Bush and his wife, Barbara, who live just down the street from them in Houston. According to a Washington Post article by Walter Pincus and Bob Woodward entitled, Doing Well with Help from Family, Friends, (Aug. 11, 1988) when Bush was running against Lloyd Bentsen for senator in 1970, Kerr advised Bush on a proposed business deal involving a loan request from a man named Victor Flaherty, who needed money to buy Fidelity Printing Company. Kerr recommended that Bush make the loan, but that he also demand some stock in Fidelity Printing as part of the deal. And three years later, when Fidelity Printing was sold, Bush cashed in his stock for $99,600 in profit, a gain of 1,900 percent on his original investment.