Enterprise Holdings Gives Unrestricted $2 Million Gift to MU
Gift will provide endowment for important sustainability research
April 23rd, 2013
COLUMBIA, Mo. — The University of Missouri has received an unrestricted gift of $2 million from the world’s largest car rental company, Enterprise Holdings, and its philanthropic arm, the Enterprise Holdings Foundation. St. Louis-based Enterprise Holdings owns and operates the Enterprise Rent-A-Car, National Car Rental and Alamo Rent A Car brands.
With the gift, MU Chancellor Brady Deaton will create an endowment for sustainability that will seed transformational research, education, and applications that sustain health, culture, economic vitality, and quality of life in a volatile global environment.
“We’re proud of our partnership with Enterprise and the investment they are making in the university, our students and our state,” Deaton said. “This gift will enhance opportunities to advance MU’s mission through collaborative and innovative research and educational opportunities. This gift shows how Enterprise recognizes what Mizzou can do – that’s the fundamental core of the Mizzou Advantage. We are bringing interdisciplinary work together to look at world problems in ways no one else can, due to our unique assets.”
The Mizzou Advantage area of sustainable energy addresses energy issues broadly, building on MU’s unique and powerful resources, including the MU Research Reactor; biomass power plant; innovative research in biofuels, biomass and energy efficiency; the College of Engineering; and education programs in nuclear and other kinds of energy. This initiative also examines energy policy and its implications, business models, environmental impacts, and the cultural and social consequences of energy uses and production.
This generous gift strengthens the already close bonds among Mizzou, Enterprise and its many employees who are MU alumni. Enterprise Holdings currently employs more than 600 MU alumni. Also, several of the company’s senior executives – including President & Chief Operating Officer Pam Nicholson, Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer William Snyder, and Chief Marketing & Communications Officer Patrick Farrell – are MU graduates.
“Mizzou provides our company with more employees than any other institution of higher education in the world,” said Carolyn Kindle, vice president and executive director of the Enterprise Holdings Foundation. “We view our participation in this development campaign as an investment that will benefit not only the students and the university, but every person, institution and company like ours that is touched by Mizzou.”
About Enterprise Holdings
Enterprise Holdings and its affiliate Enterprise Fleet Management together offer a total transportation solution. Combined, these businesses – which include extensive car rental and car-sharing services, commercial truck rental, corporate fleet management and retail car sales – accounted for $15.4 billion in revenue and operated 1.3 million vehicles throughout the world in fiscal 2012. Enterprise Holdings, through its regional subsidiaries, operates the largest fleet of vehicles in the world through a global network of more than 8,200 airport and neighborhood locations.
About Mizzou Advantage
Mizzou Advantage is a program that focuses on four areas of MU strength: food for the future, media of the future, one health, one medicine, and sustainable energy. The goals of Mizzou Advantage are to strengthen existing faculty networks, create new networks and propel Mizzou’s research, instruction and other activities to the next level.