The Ray and Evelyn Crowley Endowment
A number of stories at Turner
Business have mentioned the Turner College’s Ray and Evelyn Crowley Endowed
Chair in Entrepreneurship. The current
holder of the Crowley Chair is Turner College management professor Kirk Heriot, as each of these prior
entries has noted. None of these prior
entries provides details about the origin of this particular endowment. Established in May of 2005, the Crowley
Endowed Chair is named for Ray Crowley and his wife Evelyn, both of whom have
contributed substantially to support quality education and scholarship in the
Columbus area. Ray was born in 1932 in
Lennox, South Dakota. He earned a
bachelor’s degree from the University of South Dakota in 1955, and later, in
1963, went on to complete the advanced management course at Harvard
University. During his professional
career, Crowley, a certified public accountant, held positions with Peat
Marwick & Company, Bay State Milling Company, General Mills, and Royal
Crown Cola. In 1974 he became CEO and
Board Chairman at Burnham Service Corporation in Columbus. Throughout his time with Burnham, Crowley
held board seats with Liberty Mutual and First Union Bank, among others. In 1996, after Crowley retired from
professional life, he was approached by Noll Van Cleave about joining Van
Cleave’s efforts to develop Childcare Network, a Georgia-based network of
pre-school education and daycare providers.
Van Cleave’s pitch convinced Crowley to come out of retirement to become
both a shareholder and CEO of the organization.
At the time he joined Childcare Network, it had acquired a total of 27
schools around the state. Under
Crowley’s leadership, the network extended beyond Georgia, and by the time he
stepped down as CEO in 1999, it had grown to 139 schools in seven states.
“We
are extremely fortunate to have a university in Columbus acknowledged for its
excellence through accreditation by AACSB International – the Association to
Advance Collegiate Schools of Business.”
Ray and Evelyn Crowley, 2005
Engagement in the local
community has been a hallmark of the Crowleys’ lives in Columbus. Ray was elected to the CSU Foundation Board
in 1986. He also chaired CSU’s “Campaign
for Excellence” in the 1980s, which at that time was the most successful
capital fund campaign ever undertaken in the Columbus area. The Crowleys’ engagement in the local
community has been facilitated by the Crowley Foundation, which supports
educational and research endeavors at Columbus State University, the University
of Georgia and Duke University, as well as the activities of the Columbus
Museum, among many others. The Crowley
Foundation most recently listed assets totaling about $1.4 million. In addition to these efforts, Ray and
Evelyn’s endowment in CSU’s Turner College, which currently boasts a balance of
just under $1.9 million, supports Heriot’s research efforts. With the support of the Crowley endowment, Heriot’s
research in entrepreneurship and business management appears in a number of
A-rated journals, including Small
Business Economics, Cornell
Hospitality Quarterly, Journal of Small
Business Management, Journal of
Supply Chain Management, American
Business Review and International
Journal of Purchasing & Materials Management. Finally, as the plaque displayed on the
second floor of the Synovus Center of Commerce and Technology, home to the
Turner College on CSU’s main campus, indicates, the Crowley endowment also
supports Turner College students in their preparation for an entrepreneurial
approach to business enterprise.
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