Building a business legacy

Black Enterprise, Feb, 1996 by Larren Adams

IN 1957, A YOUNG MAN from Brooklyn named Earl G. Graves graduated from Morgan State College in Baltimore. Thirty-eight years later, Graves earned what is perhaps the ultimate honor an alma mater can bestow on a favorite son: having a school named after him.

"I always thought you had to be very old or dead before they started naming things after you," Graves, 61, said jokingly, moments after Dr. Earl S. Richardson, president of what is now Morgan State University announced that Morgan's business school would be renamed the Earl G. Graves School of Business and Management.

However, the occasion of the announcement - the gala dinner celebrating the silver anniversary of BLACK ENTERPRISE Magazine, held in New York last August 9 - represented far better reasons for a university to so recognize an alum. Not least among them was Graves' pledge of $1 million towards supporting entrepreneurial education at Morgan State - nearly three-quarters of which was raised from proceeds of the anniversary dinner. But perhaps most important among them is Graves' accomplishments since leaving Morgan, including becoming CEO of two of the nation's largest black-owned businesses: Pepsi Cola of Washington, D.C., LP and Earl G. Graves Ltd., the parent company of BE.

Graves, whose pledge represents the largest alumni gift ever to the university, sees his loyal support of his alma mater as simply a balancing of the books against the invaluable nurturing of ambition he received at Morgan as a student. "I remember how it felt to be a student on a campus with brilliant and dedicated professors demanding the best from us, while also being very supportive of us; and where associations with fellow students - bursting with ambition and dreaming of success - became lifelong friendships," he recalled. "My experience was not unique. Our historically black colleges and universities - our Hamptons, Spelmans, Howards, Fisks and Southerns - have a long and noble tradition of educating, training and nurturing our young people while bracing them against a world that is often cruel, unfair and fraught with threats to their very survival."

The fruits of Morgan State's investment in Earl Graves were in full view at the New York Marriott Marquis Grand Ballroom, the site of BE's 25th Anniversary Gala. More than 600 luminaries in the worlds of business, politics and corporate America turned out to celebrate the magazine and its publisher. President Bill Clinton spoke to the esteemed gathering live via satellite from the White House. During his remarks, Clinton described Graves' efforts to advance business education Morgan State as "an investment that will pay great dividends for the next generation and beyond, and I hope on, that will encourage others to follow Earl's lead and do their part to help expand opportunities in business and education for African Americans."

25 YEARS OF B.E. IN ONE ROOM

Even those accustomed to rubbing shoulders with the powerful and influential found BE's 25th Anniversary Gala overwhelmingly impressive. Those gathered to celebrate BE's quarter century as the premiere business publication for and about African American professionals, executives and entrepreneurs represented a literal who's who of business newsmakers featured in the magazine itself.

Hosted by former Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson, now chairman of Jackson Securities, and chaired by Chase Manhattan Corp. CEO Thomas Labrecque, the dinner attracted the power brokers of government and politics, including U.S. Secretary of Commerce Ronald H. Brown and the Rev. Jesse Jackson; corporate America, including Maxwell House Coffee President Ann Fudge, Ben & Jerry's CEO Bob Holland and American Express Vice-chairman Kenneth I. Chenault; and black entrepreneurship, including BE 100s CEOs Johnson Publishing's John H. Johnson, TLC Beatrice Holdings' Loida Lewis, BET Holdings' Robert Johnson and Essence Communications' Ed Lewis. Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke was on hand to present Graves with Maryland's State Seal.

Dinner co-chairs included Paul A. Allaire, chairman & CEO, Xerox Corp.; Geoffrey C. Bible, president & CEO, Philip Morris Co. Inc.; Edward Brennan, chairman, president & CEO, Sears, Roebuck & Co.; Daniel Burke, chairman & CEO (retired), Capital Cities-ABC Inc.; August Busch, chairman & president, Anheuser-Busch Co. Inc.; Kenneth I. Chenault, vice-chairman, American Express Co.; John L. Clendenin, chairman & CEO, BellSouth Corp.; Ronald E. Compton, chairman, president & CEO, Aetna Life & Casualty Co.; Comer J. Cottrell, president & CEO, Pro-Line Corp.; Robert L. Crandall, chairman & CEO, American Airlines Inc.; Robert Eaton, chairman & CEO, Chrysler Corp.; and Edward & Bettyann Gardner, chairpersons, Soft Sheen Products.

Also: Dennis Hightower, president, Walt Disney Television & Telecommunications; John H. Johnson, publisher, chairman & CEO, Johnson Publishing Co. Inc.; Leo-Arthur Kemenson, chairman, Bozell, Jacobs, Kenyon & Eckhardt; Loida N. Lewis, chairperson, TLC Beatrice International Holdings; J. Willard Marriott Jr., chairman, president & CEO, Marriott Corp.; Richard D. Parsons, president, Time-Warner Inc.; Allen I. Questron, chairman & CEO, Federated Department Stores Inc.; Allen F. Ryan, chairman & CEO, Prudential Insurance Co. of America; Frederick V. Salerno, vice chairman, NYNEX Corp.; Maceo K. Sloan, chairman, president & CEO, NCM Capital Management Group, Inc.; Frederick W. Smith, chairman, president & CEO, Federal Express Corp.; John F. Smith, CEO, General Motors Corp.; Arthur Sulzberger Jr., publisher, the New York Times; Alex Trotman, chairman, Ford Motor Co.; Craig Weatherup, president & CEO, PepsiCola Co.; John F. Welch, chairman & CEO, General Electric Co.; J. Lawrence Wilson, chairman & CEO, Rohm & Haas Co.; and Robert Wright, president & CEO, National Broadcasting Co. Inc.