Additionally, he became one of Tennessee's largest philanthropists, focusing on his alma mater, Vanderbilt University, but also other colleges, schools and museums.
[3] He graduated from Vanderbilt University in 1941 and attended the Harvard Business School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
[1][2][4] He also served as Chairman of Genesco (NYSE: GCO), a publicly traded footwear corporation headquartered in Nashville.
[1][7] As early as 1973, he was the largest donor to Howard Baker's senatorial re-election campaign, by donating $10,000 in public records.
[8] He became heavily involved in funding of the National Republican Party in 1973–1974, when future President George H. W. Bush was chairman.
[2] Moreover, alongside Jack C. Massey (1904-1990), the Freedom Forum and Mobil (now known as ExxonMobil), he was one of the major donors for the establishment of the Vanderbilt Television News Archive.
[2][13] Additionally, he served as chairman of the Board of Trustees of Cumberland University, a smaller private college in Lebanon, Tennessee, the Montgomery Bell Academy, a private academy in Nashville, and the Robert A. Taft Institute of Government.
[1][2] Additionally, he was one of the co-founders of the Tennessee Performing Arts Center and a member of the Nashville Urban League.
[2] In Nashville, he sat on the board of trustees of the Travellers Rest, a historic plantation turned into a museum.
[2][4][14] Additionally, his portrait, painted by Ann Street, hangs in Kirkland Hall, the administration building on the Vanderbilt campus.