Jones School building named for McNairs

Jones School building named for McNairs

BY MARGOT DIMOND
Rice News staff

The newest building on the Rice University campus, the 167,000-square-foot home of the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management, has been officially named “Janice and Robert McNair Hall” by the Rice Board of Trustees.

Photo by Tommy LaVergne

The Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management building has been named after Janice and Robert McNair. The couple made the largest gift to the Rice: The Next Century Campaign in support of the Jones School.

McNair, chairman and chief executive officer of The McNair Group and majority owner of the Houston Texans football team, served on the Rice Board of Trustees from 1994 to 2002 and as honorary co-chair of the Rice: The Next Century Campaign, which concluded last year. He and his wife, Janice, who serves with him as a Rice Associate and member of the William Marsh Rice Society, made the largest gift to the $502.7 million campaign in support of the Jones School.

Through the Houston Texans, the McNairs also helped to underwrite a sports management program at the Jones School.

“Rice and the Jones School are very pleased to have our great building named for Janice and Robert McNair,” Jones School Dean Gilbert R. Whitaker said. “The McNairs’ generous gift during the Rice: The Next Century Campaign made possible not only the building, but many other good things for the Jones School. It was almost magic to tell someone that the McNairs had endorsed our program of improvement with their magnificent gift.”

McNair is perhaps best-known in the business community as the founder of Cogen Technologies, one of the world’s largest cogeneration companies, which was sold in 1999. The McNair Group oversees an investment portfolio that includes cogeneration assets in the eastern United States.

Active in the Houston community, McNair is a current or past member of the boards of trustees of a number of institutions in addition to Rice, including Baylor College of Medicine, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston Grand Opera, Greater Houston Partnership, Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Free Enterprise Institute and the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

Janice Suber McNair is well-known in the Houston community for her philanthropic and civic commitment. With her husband, she established the Robert and Janice McNair Foundation, which provides significant support to a wide variety of charitable, scientific, literary, educational and religious organizations. She is also a strong supporter of the Houston Zoo, where the Janice Suber McNair Asian Elephant Habitat has been open since 1994.

The McNairs’ past gifts for education include funding to endow the chair of the director of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice. Other significant gifts were made to Baylor College of Medicine endowing the McNair Scholars M.D./Ph.D. Program; endowing the McNairs Scholars program at the University of South Carolina, where Bob McNair earned his bachelor’s degree in 1958 and received an honorary doctor of humane letters degree in 1999; funding construction of the Barbara Bush Center for Science and Technology at Columbia College, Janice McNair’s alma mater; funding numerous education and fine arts initiatives for inner-city youth in Houston; and a scholarship program in Forest City, N.C., where Robert McNair attended high school.

The McNairs and their foundation have been honored numerous times. Most recently, Robert McNair received this year’s President and Mrs. George H.W. Bush Community Impact Award from the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and last year’s Heart of Houston Award from the Fifth Ward Enrichment Program. Last year, the McNairs Foundation was honored with a Hall of Fame Award at the Houston Independent School District Partnership Appreciation Breakfast. It has also been named Outstanding Philanthropic Foundation by the Association of Fundraising Professionals.