Texas A&M Athletics Lands $25 Million From Houston Energy Mogul

A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:

Texas A&M University Athletics

Jay and April Graham gave $25 million to support the athletics department’s Centennial Campaign, an effort to raise money for the construction of an academic and wellness center, a training center for the football team, and an indoor track stadium. The money will also be used to redevelop the Bright Football Complex.

Jay Graham co-founded WildHorse Resources, a Houston oil and gas company, in 2007, and currently serves as the chairman and CEO of Spur Energy Partners, another oil and gas company in Houston. He earned a petroleum engineering degree from Texas A&M in 1992 and was appointed to the Texas A&M University System Board of Regents by Texas governor Greg Abbott in 2019.

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

Gail and Alfred Engelberg have pledged $15 million through their Engelberg Foundation to endow the museum’s arts education programs. Museum officials have named the institution’s education facility the Gail May Engelberg Center for Arts Education in recognition of the gift.

Gail May Engelberg co-founded Gammel, Ollendick & May, a firm specializing in the purchase and removal of abandoned railroad lines and the recycling of railroad ties, rail, and scrap steel throughout the western United States in 1974. She served as sales and marketing director of the company, which shut down in 1985. She currently serves on the museum’s Board of Trustees and is chairwoman of the Education Committee of the Guggenheim Foundation.

Alfred Engelberg is a retired intellectual property lawyer who served as principal negotiator during the legislative process that led to the Patent Term Restoration Act of 1984 (the Hatch-Waxman Act) and the 1988 Omnibus Trade Bill’s provisions on process patents. The couple primarily support healthcare, education, and social-service projects through their foundation.

American Association for the Advancement of Science

Mani Bhaumik pledged $11.4 million to establish the Mani L. Bhaumik Breakthrough of the Year Award, a $250,000 annual cash prize that will be awarded to up to three scientists whose foundational research and activities best exemplify the most significant developments in scientific research.

Bhaumik is a physicist with multiple contributions to the development of high-powered lasers. He is also a real-estate investor and a philanthropist who has given millions to higher education and other causes. He grew up in the Midnapore district of West Bengal, India, and although his family struggled to feed him and his five siblings, his mother and grandmother found ways to ensure he got an education.

He earned a Ph.D. in Quantum Physics at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, and then came to the U.S. in 1959 through a Sloan Foundation fellowship. He completed his postdoctoral studies at the University of California at Los Angeles. He later went to work for Xerox Electro-Optical Systems and Northrop Grumman, where he helped develop Lasik eye surgery.

Columbus Urban League

Alexis Jacobs left an unrestricted $4 million gift which the nonprofit plans to use to establish an endowment that will eventually provide it with a larger reserve fund.

Jacobs was an Ohio businesswoman who owned and led the Columbus Fair Auto Auction, an automobile-auction company founded by her late father, William Jacobs, in 1958. Alexis Jacobs became CEO of the business in 1982 and sold it to another auction company, the XLerate Group, in 2019. She also served as president of the National Auto Auction Association from 1995 to 2019.

Jacobs, who died in June, left another big bequest to another Columbus, Ohio nonprofit; she left $4 million to the Franklin Park Conservatory and Botanical Gardens.

University of Houston

A.R. (Tony) and Maria Sanchez gave $3 million through their A.R. “Tony” and Maria J. Sanchez Family Foundation to establish a scholarship endowment for sales and digital marketing students. In recognition of the gift, the Program for Excellence in Selling at the C. T. Bauer College of Business will be renamed the A.R. “Tony” and Maria J. Sanchez Program for Excellence in Selling.

The Sanchezes are majority owners of International Bancshares Corporation, the parent company of the International Bank of Commerce in Laredo, Tex. Tony Sanchez is a former chief executive and chairman of Sanchez Oil & Gas Corporation, a company he co-founded with his father. He also helped to discover several major oil and natural-gas fields in Texas in the 1970s.

When fully funded, the new endowment will support $5,000 scholarships for 30 students each year at the Stephen Stagner Sales Excellence Institute, with a preference given to students from low-income families.

University of Maryland School of Medicine

Maurice Reid gave $1 million to renovate the medical school’s gross anatomy laboratories and modernize that teaching environment for medical students. Reid is a former emergency room physician who founded and leads ExpressCare Urgent Care Centers, a Bel Air, Md., company that operates urgent-care centers in three states. He previously served as clinical director of the Emergency department at Bon Secours Hospital in Baltimore, Md.

He has a long history with the university. Reid earned an M.D. at the medical school in 1999 and completed a residency in Emergency Medicine at the University of Maryland Medical Center. He then served as an assistant professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the medical school.

To learn about other big donations, see our database of gifts of $1 million or more, which is updated regularly.