Chris Cline facts for kids

The Chris Cline Athletic Complex at Marshall University in 2021.

Chris Cline (born July 5, 1958 – died July 4, 2019) was a very successful American businessman and generous giver. He owned most of Foresight Reserves LP, a big company based in St. Louis, Missouri. People called him the "New King Coal" because he helped bring the Illinois coal industry back to life. His company had huge amounts of coal, more than three billion tons, in Illinois and the northern Appalachian Mountains.

Chris Cline's Early Life

Chris Cline was born in Beckley, West Virginia, on July 5, 1958. His father was Paul Cline and his mother was Lassie Justice Cline.

Chris's grandfather worked in coal mines with a pickaxe in the early 1900s. When Chris was six, his father asked him to fill paper bags with dirt. He paid Chris a penny for each bag. Chris dug the dirt from under their house in Isaban, West Virginia. His father used these dirt bags to help with mine blasting. After two years, their porch fell down! Chris said his father told him to "support the roof better." In 1980, when Chris was 21, his father bought out his business partner and gave the company shares to Chris.

Education

Chris Cline studied psychology at Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia.

Chris Cline's Business Career

Starting in Coal Mining

In 1980, at age 22, Chris Cline became an underground miner. He started his own energy company, the Cline Group, in 1990. In 2006, he created Foresight Energy to manage his coal rights in the Illinois Basin. Foresight Energy became a public company in 2014, meaning its shares could be bought and sold on the New York Stock Exchange. Chris sold most of his shares in Foresight in 2015 for $1.4 billion.

Illinois Coal Industry

Illinois has a huge supply of coal, enough for 250 years! This makes it the state with the largest usable coal reserves in the United States. In 2017, Illinois used nearly $1.4 billion worth of coal. Coal mining operations were active in 12 counties.

However, Illinois coal has a lot of sulfur. This makes it hard for most power plants to burn it because of pollution rules. Chris Cline spent $300 million on mining rights and equipment in Illinois in the 1990s. He believed that the United States Environmental Protection Agency would soon require power plants to use special equipment called "scrubbers." These scrubbers remove pollutants, which would make Illinois coal useful again for making electricity.

In 2005, the Cline Group built its Williamson longwall mining operation. This is a modern way to mine coal, located south of West Frankfort, Illinois.

A company called SNL Financial reported in 2008 that the Deer Run coal mine in Montgomery County, Illinois, owned by Cline's Hillsboro Energy LLC, would produce up to eight million tons of coal each year until 2016. In the same report, Cline's team said he aimed to produce 60 million tons of coal annually from his Illinois operations.

Chris Cline also bought a special type of coal mine in Nova Scotia after selling his Foresight stock. He also gained rights to coal in Western Canada.

Chris Cline believed coal was a source of low-cost energy. In a 2010 interview, he said, "As far as the social acceptability of coal, I like to think I’m part of supplying the cheapest energy in America."

Giving Back: Philanthropy

Chris Cline was very generous. In May 2011, he donated $5 million to the School of Medicine and the Department of Intercollegiate Athletics at West Virginia University. This donation came from his Cline Family Foundation. It helped create a special position for a doctor in Orthopaedic Surgery. It also helped pay for a new basketball practice building.

In July 2011, Marshall University received another $5 million donation from the Cline Family Foundation. This money was for sports medicine research.

Personal Life

Chris Cline's first wife was Sabrina J. Holley Cline. They had a daughter named Candice. Sadly, Sabrina died from breast cancer in September 1987.

In 1993, Chris married his second wife, Kelly. They divorced in 2000. Chris had two sons and two daughters: Christopher Logan Cline, Alex Tanner Cline, and Kameron Cline.

In 2011, his daughter Candice, who worked for a foundation, married James Graham Kenan.

Chris Cline owned a very large house in North Palm Beach, Florida. It was about 33,413 square feet. He also had a home in his hometown of Beckley, West Virginia, on a 150-acre property. He was a founding member of Brenton Southern Baptist Church.

His Yachts: "Mine Games"

Chris Cline owned two very large luxury yachts, both named "Mine Games." The first one was 164 feet long and built in 2008. He sold it in 2013. Later, he bought an even bigger yacht, 205 feet long, and also named it "Mine Games." This yacht had five bedrooms and even its own small submarine! It was designed and built in Italy in 2010. Chris sold this yacht in late 2018.

Threats to His Family

In August 2012, a man named Vivek Shah was arrested. He had tried to get money from Chris Cline and others by threatening their families. Around June 2012, Shah threatened to kill members of Cline's family if $13 million was not sent to an overseas bank account. Shah was charged with several crimes and was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2013.

Death

On July 4, 2019, Chris Cline died in a helicopter crash in Grand Cay, Bahamas. He was 60 years old.

Several other people also died in the crash. These included his 22-year-old daughter Kameron and three of her friends: Brittney Searson, Jillian Clark, and Delaney Wykle. They were flying back from the Bahamas to the United States because Kameron and one of her friends had become ill and needed to go to an American hospital. The other people who died were golfer David Jude and the helicopter's pilot, Geoffrey Lee Painter.

A report in 2021 by the National Transportation Safety Board looked into the crash. They found that the two pilots decided to take off, likely feeling pressured by Chris Cline. It was dark, and they couldn't see well over the water. They became confused about their position and crashed into the sea.

Legacy

In 2014, the Chris Cline Athletic Complex was named in his honor. This is an indoor football practice building at Marshall University.

See also

In Spanish: Chris Cline para niños

• List of Marshall University people