Curtis Rice

Curtis Rice grew up in western Oklahoma, on land his great-grandparents claimed in the 1893 land run. He started his first business as a teenager hauling hay, and along the way ran cattle, worked feedlots, and checked wells in the oilfield.

He has spent nearly thirty years in markets, hedge funds, and private equity. He began on an energy derivatives desk, then built a physical trading business for a hedge fund, growing a two-man shop into a major desk with the credit and risk-analysis systems underneath it. Later, in senior roles at public and private-equity-backed infrastructure companies, he originated and structured billions of dollars in long-term contracts. Alongside that career, he built an independent buy-side investment firm spanning real estate, private credit, venture, and energy.

He has a passion for understanding history by following the money. He enjoys macroeconomics — how money, interest rates, capital, supply, and demand move markets, countries, and eventually empires. History is typically carried by the flow of money. Or at least rewritten by those who have it.

He holds an MBA in finance from the University of Tulsa and a degree in finance and economics from Oklahoma State University, where he advises the School of Entrepreneurship. He lives in Tulsa with his family. Hustler's Empire is his first novel.