Rosser Newton

For more than three decades, Rosser Newton has built a career at the intersection of energy investing, business leadership, and Texas history. Based in Dallas, he is the founder and managing partner of Petro Capital Group, a private investment firm focused on the oil, gas, and oilfield services industries. Beyond his work in private equity, Newton is the author of Richard Coke: Texan, a biography of the fifteenth governor of Texas published in 2024 by Stoney Creek Publishing Group, a member of the Texas Book Consortium affiliated with Texas A&M University Press.

Newton's interest in Texas history began during his years at Vanderbilt University, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and earned the university's class writing award for journalism. As an indirect descendant of Governor Coke, he spent years in archival research, drawing from personal correspondence, family records, legislative debates, constitutional convention proceedings, newspapers, census records, and city directories. He later earned his Juris Doctor from The University of Texas School of Law. He has also written Reflections on Love, Time and Nature and The Need for a Little More.

In recognition of his work, the Texas Senate honored Newton through Senate Resolution 520 during the 89th Texas Legislature, adopted without objection with every member of the Senate joining as a co-author. He has presented his research at the annual meeting of the Texas State Historical Association. Newton serves as a trustee of the Dallas Historical Society, is co-chair and a founding member of the Alamo Letter Society, and is a founding member of the Dallas Arboretum Foundation, serving as Director Emeritus of the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden.