Jeffrey Hildebrand, the Houston billionaire who owns Hilcorp, the largest privately held oil company in the country, gave all of his 1,381 employees a $100,000 holiday bonus this year! He’s a generous guy! Hildebrand gave every employee either $35,000 cash or a voucher worth $50,000 toward a new car, when the company doubled its oil and gas production five years ago.

The latest reward came for doubling the company’s output again, even during the recent downturn in the oil business. No surprise that Hilcorp is one of Forbes’ 100 Best Companies to Work For three years in a row. Hildebrand is #73 on Forbes list of 400 Richest Americans, with a net worth of $6.3 billion.

The couple also made news two years ago when they opened a drive-thru doughnut shop in upscale River Oaks. Mindy told CultureMap on the first day of business.

“I felt like I wanted to provide the neighborhood with doughnuts. It’s as simple as that. There was a need so we are providing a service.”

OK. Before you get pissed off (more than you already are, since you didn’t get that $100,000 check) that these guys think that donuts are NEEDED, earlier this year, the Hildebrand’s pledged $10 million to the Houston Parks Board in support of its Bayou Greenways 2020 project through their Hildebrand Foundation. So, they give their money to things important to THEM. Just we all do, hopefully.

Mindy Hildebrand shows off her River Oaks Donuts

(T/Y Tad: via CultureMap)