Baylor Regents Approve the Baylor Foundation

by Alan Hunt

WACO, Texas - The Baylor University Board of Regents recently approved changing the name of The Tryon Foundation to the Baylor Foundation. The Tryon Foundation has existed since 1981, but has been inactive. It was named for William M. Tryon, a co-founder of the university. The organization is a non-profit corporation with tax-exempt status.
Baylor regents intend to activate the foundation, and the name change was viewed by the board as a means of identifying the foundation more closely with Baylor University.
Baylor President Robert B. Sloan Jr. described the action as a "very prudent move for Baylor." He added, "Our plan is to transfer the legal title to Baylor's endowment assets to the Baylor Foundation." Many major universities such as Baylor have a separate foundation to accept endowment gifts they receive and to hold legal title to those assets.
Baylor's major endowment assets are managed for the University by the Baptist Foundation of Texas. "The action of the Board of Regents will not change substantially on a day-to-day basis the management relationship that we have with the Baptist Foundation of Texas," Sloan said.
Baylor regents also elected 11 directors to the board of the Baylor Foundation. A 12th director will be named at a later date.
The newly elected directors of the foundation include: Randy W. Ferguson, president of RWF Investments in Austin and a Baylor regent; Dr. L. Kent Gilbreath, professor of economics and the E.M. and Thelma Stevens Professor of Private Enterprise and Entrepreneurship at Baylor's Hankamer School of Business; Joe E. Coleman, a partner with the Houston law firm of Fouts and Moore, L.L.P., and a trustee with the William A. and Madeline W. Smith Foundation of Houston and the Ralph H. and Ruth J. McCullough Foundation, also of Houston; Dale P. Jones, president of the Halliburton Co. of Dallas and a Baylor regent; and Jack G. Folmar, chief executive officer of Signal Aviation Underwriters Inc. in Dallas and a former Baylor regent.
Others are: Matt S. Miller of Houston, a former Baylor baseball letterman and retired senior vice president of Maryland Club Foods, a subsidiary of the Procter & Gamble Company, and retired executive vice president of Coca-Cola Foods; Thomas R. Powers, a Baylor regent and
former chairman of the board, president and chief executive officer of TransAmerica Fund Management Co. in Houston (formerly Criterion Funds Inc.); and Daniel H. Chapman of Dallas, president and chief executive officer of Northern Trust Bank of Texas and a member of the Hankamer School of Business Advisory Board.
Other directors are: Earl B. Patrick, president of Jim Stewart Realtors Inc., Waco, and a former Baylor regent; Joe L. Allbritton, chairman of the board of The Riggs National Bank, Washington, D.C., owner and chairman of University Bankshares of Houston, owner of network-affiliated television stations in Washington, D.C., Arkansas, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Virginia, a former Baylor trustee, and a 1995 inductee into the Texas Business Hall of Fame; and Dr. Arthur Beall of Houston, owner of Arthur O. Beall International E&P, former president of British Gas E&P Inc. and a member of Baylor's Sesquicentennial Council of 150.
One of the first actions of the board of directors of the Baylor Foundation will be to appoint a president and chief executive officer, Sloan said. "They also will have to decide whether to base the foundation in Waco or in Dallas close to the Baptist Foundation of Texas," he added.