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Ford Donates $4.75 Million to Texas A&M University

25 May 1999

Ford Donates $4.75 Million to Texas A&M University

    COLLEGE STATION, Texas, May 25 -- Ford Motor Company
has awarded Texas A&M University a $4.75 million grant to provide
major student and faculty support and new academic initiatives in several
fields, including engineering and business.  It is the second-largest
corporate cash gift in Texas A&M's 123-year history.
    Total value of the Ford gift increases to $5.25 million with the inclusion
of a $500,000 matching gift for endowed chairs provided by H. R. "Bum" Bright
of Dallas, a 1943 Texas A&M graduate and former chairman of The Texas A&M
University System Board of Regents.
    The gift, made possible through Ford Motor Company Fund, continues a
decades-long history of support for Texas A&M by the company.  The five-year
Ford funding project will support Texas A&M programs in the Dwight Look
College of Engineering, the Lowry Mays College and Graduate School of
Business, the Sterling C. Evans Library, the International Center in the
George Bush Presidential Library Complex and the Texas A&M Foundation.
    Carlos Mazzorin, Ford's group vice president of Purchasing and vice
president of Ford of Mexico, formally announced the gift at a campus breakfast
hosted by Texas A&M President Ray M. Bowen and other university officials.
    "Ford Motor Company's support for higher education continues to be a top
priority as we strive to become the world's leading consumer company for
automotive products and services," said Mazzorin, who serves as Ford's
executive sponsor for Texas A&M.  "Our partnership with Texas A&M will allow
us to draw academia and business even closer together to ensure that students
are prepared to meet the expectations, demands and pressures in an intensely
competitive and dynamic business environment," he added.
    Bowen noted that the Ford gift will benefit Texas A&M in key areas.  "The
generosity of Ford Motor Company will enable several of our academic
departments to expand their programs, and it will give numerous students
scholarship aid to continue their studies," he said.  "We greatly appreciate
the company's continued commitment to Texas A&M.  Our relationship with Ford
is long, and it is a relationship we treasure," Bowen added.
    Over the years, Ford's support for Texas A&M has included sponsoring
career programs on campus, funding numerous scholarships and providing
mentoring.  Ford funding enabled the development and implementation of the
Texas A&M Career Center's software project that supports a Web-based
recruiting system.
    Ford's current pledge will support a state-of-the-art imagery project; the
Ford Distinguished Scholar Program, a Mays College-based program to identify
and recruit high-achieving students at both the undergraduate and graduate
levels; a program to help redesign the curriculum for undergraduate
engineering students; and a scholarship program for minority students to be
administered by the Texas A&M Foundation.