E. Bronson Ingram II

E. Bronson Ingram II (1931–1995) was an American businessman and billionaire, and the long-time head of Ingram Industries.^{[1][2][3][4][5]}

Biography

Early life

Erskine Bronson Ingram II was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota on November 27, 1931, the son of millionaire businessman Orrin Henry Ingram and Hortense Bigelow Ingram.^[1][2][3][4] He was named after his grandfather.^[6] His family moved to Nashville, Tennessee in 1948.^[1] He attended the Phillips Academy and Montgomery Bell Academy.^[4] He attended college at Vanderbilt University and transferred to Princeton University, graduating in 1953.^{[1][2][3][4][7]} At Princeton, he majored in English, and belonged to the Republican Club.^[4]

Career

He joined the United States Navy as a naval officer, when he sailed to Panama on a destroyer until 1955, when he resigned.^[1][2][4] He then started working for his father's company, the Ingram Oil & Refining Co., later known as the Ingram Corporation.^[1][3][5] In particular, he managed the company-owned service stations and helped build truck stops where Ingram truckers could sleep, shower, or eat.^[6] In 1958, he met Martha Robinson Rivers in New York City, and they got married the same year.^[1][8][9] They moved to New Orleans, where the Ingram Corporation was headquartered, but moved back to Nashville in 1961.^[1] They had three sons, David B. Ingram, Orrin H. Ingram II, and John R. Ingram, and one daughter, Robin Ingram Patton.^[1][2][4]

After his father died in 1963, he became President and his brother, Frederic B. Ingram, became Chairman of the Ingram Corporation.^[1] However, in 1978, after his brother had been convicted of corruption in Illinois, they spilt the company.^[1][6] Frederick kept the Ingram Corporation, which consisted of oil refineries and pipeline system, headquartered in New Orleans.^[1] E. Bronson took over the Ingram Book Company, Ingram Materials Company, Ingram Barge Company, Tennessee Book Company, and Bluewater Insurance Company.^[1] He called it Ingram Industries.^[1] By 1995, the Ingram Barge Company became the Inland Marine Transportation Group, the third-largest inland waterway carrier in the United States.^[1] In 1970, the Tennessee Book Company became known as the Ingram Book Company, and by 1995 it controlled 52 percent of the wholesale book distribution market to American retail bookstores.^[1] He also founded Ingram Software, and in 1985 it acquired Micro D and morphed into Ingram Micro Incorporated.^[1] It quickly became the largest distributor of microcomputer hardware and software in the world.^[1] He also founded Ingram Entertainment, the largest wholesale distributor of pre-recorded videocassettes.^[1]

Philanthropy

He held leadership positions in the Tennessee Performing Arts Center in the late 1970s and the state Bicentennial Celebration of 1996.^[1] He joined the Vanderbilt Board of Trust in 1967, and served as its Chairman from 1991 to 1995.^[1][2][3][7] He donated US$25 million to Vanderbilt.^[1] He served as the President of the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce in 1987, and later as Vice-Chairman of the Tennessee Industrial and Agricultural Development Commission.^[1][2][3] In 1993, he nominated the first African-American accepted for membership in the Belle Meade Country Club.^[1] He also supported Inroads and the Nashville Symphony.^[3] He was a member and former Chair of the PENCIL Foundation, and Chairman of the steering committee of Nashville's Agenda.^[3]

Death

He died of cancer on June 15, 1995.^[1][2] At the time of his death, he was Tennessee's only billionaire and 56th richest person in the United States.^[1][5] Golfer Arnold Palmer was a pallbearer at his funeral. He is buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery.^[1] The Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center and the Ingram Studio Arts Center are named for him.^[7]

Bibliography

About him

• Martha Rivers Ingram, E. Bronson Ingram: Complete These Unfinished Tasks of Mine (2001)^[10]

References