Robert Carter

Robert W. Carter is a Dallas-based energy and industrial entrepreneur who founded Panda Energy Corporation in 1982 and built it into Panda Energy International, one of the largest privately held independent power producers in the United States. Under his leadership as Chairman and CEO, Panda developed more than 9,000 megawatts of generating capacity at a cost of over $6 billion (roughly $4.9 billion raised by some accounts), including two of the largest natural gas-fueled power plants ever built in the U.S. — the ~2,250-MW El Dorado station in Arkansas and the ~2,250-MW Gila River station in Arizona. Before Panda, Carter founded Carter Oil & Gas, Inc. in 1980, developing oil and gas prospects in the U.S. and Colombia, and earlier held sales and executive roles in the petrochemical sector, including at Olin Mathieson Chemical Corporation (1965–1970). He attended the University of Georgia.

In April 2010, Carter formed Panda Power Funds, a private equity firm designed to develop, acquire, construct, finance, and operate large-scale, natural gas-fueled power generation facilities. He served as Managing Partner, Chairman, and CEO (and Chief Compliance Officer) of the funds, which closed a $420 million private equity fund in 2011 and went on to build a fleet of roughly 5.8 GW of combined-cycle plants across Texas, Pennsylvania, and Virginia in partnership with Siemens and Bechtel. He led the funds from 2010 through approximately 2016.

Around 2019, Carter pivoted the family enterprise toward industrial hemp, founding Panda Biotech, where he serves as Chairman and CEO alongside his daughter, President Dixie Carter. Panda Biotech opened the "Panda Hemp Gin" in Wichita Falls, Texas — a ~500,000-square-foot, highly automated decortication facility billed as the largest industrial-hemp processing plant in the Western Hemisphere, capable of processing roughly 22,000 lbs of hemp fiber per hour. The venture aims to build a domestic supply chain for textile-grade "cottonized" hemp.

Carter is also known outside energy: in October 2002, at the urging of his daughter Dixie (then a TNA publicist), he acquired a controlling interest in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA), rescuing it from bankruptcy. He has received the T. Boone Pickens Lifetime Sportsman of the Year Award, joining past honorees such as Ted Turner.

• Invests in and builds capital-intensive real assets, not software or early-stage startups — historically large-scale power generation, now industrial-hemp processing and agriculture.
• Favors owner-operator control: Panda develops, finances, constructs, and operates its facilities rather than taking passive minority stakes.
• Energy thesis: clean(er), efficient natural gas combined-cycle generation and solar — Panda emphasized "environmentally friendly" power and was cited by Newsweek among top eco-friendly energy companies.
• Industrial biotech thesis (Panda Biotech): build the first U.S. large-scale, vertically integrated industrial-hemp fiber supply chain, applying the family's infrastructure and project-finance playbook to a new sector; de-risk supply via a "Pay-to-Grow" program that gives farmers free seed and guaranteed planting/harvest payments in exchange for quality control over cultivation.
• Bets on scale and first-mover positioning in emerging real-asset markets, backed by deep project-finance and construction expertise.