Joseph “Joe” Craft III

Joe Craft is chairman, president and CEO of Alliance Resource Partners L.P., a diversified natural resource company headquartered in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Alliance Resources Partners L.P. operates mining complexes in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland and West Virginia. It sells coal principally to major domestic and international utilities and industrial users. In 1996, Craft and his team lead a management buyout of MAPCO Coal and then lead ARLP's Initial Public Offering in 1999. The financial blog, The Motley Fool, named Craft the 8th best CEO in the country in 2011 one notch ahead of Mark Zuckerberg and one below Steve Jobs. Craft assumed the additional role of chairman of ARLP's general partner's Board of Directors. Craft was inducted into the University of Kentucky's Gatton College of Business and Economics Alumni Hall of Fame and the University of Kentucky's Hall of Distinguished Alumni, the highest recognition bestowed by the University on graduates for their professional accomplishments. Craft was also inducted into the Tulsa Hall of Fame in 2007 and the University of Tulsa's Business Hall of Fame in 2009. In 2008, Craft qualified as a national finalist for the E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year Award after being recognized as the Southwest Area Energy category division winner. He was inducted into the Kentucky Entrepreneur Hall of Fame in 2008. Craft serves as a director of BOK Financial Corporation, a director and immediate past chairman of the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, a director and executive committee member of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a member of the National Coal Council Chair's Leadership Council and is a past chairman of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity.