Berry Corporation
A maker of upstream oil and natural gas, Dallas-based Berry Corporation pumps up wells in California's San Joaquin and Ventura basins and Utah's Uinta Basin, and its C&J Well Services unit maintains and abandons wells for other producers. The company takes its name from founder Clarence "C.J." Berry, a California fruit farmer who won a fortune staking claims during the 1890s Klondike Gold Rush, then struck oil back home in 1909. That gold-rush rags-to-riches story lives on in the company's name.