Like many businesspeople in Houston, Russell Gordy’s roots can be traced back to oil and gas. Gordy, whose most recent project is developing a large mixed-use project in the Heights with Houston-based Midway Cos., grew up poor in northeast Houston. His K-12 education was held in the same building; he still remembers sitting as a senior in high school in the same classroom he’d occupied as a first grader. 

Gordy worked on offshore oil rigs during college — one of the best jobs you could get at that age, he said — and landed a job with Transco after college. He had a significant stint at Houston Oil & Minerals, now known as Walter Oil & Gas Corp., and found himself scooping up oil fields in the mid-80s during the savings and loans crash.

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