E. Bronson Ingram II (1931–1995) was an American billionaire heir and business executive. He served as the Chairman of

Ingram Industries Ingram Industries is a manufacturing company headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee. The company consists of diversified businesses in marine transportation aggregate supply, book distribution, print on demand book manufacturing, management and di ...

from 1963 to 1995.Tennessee Encyclopedia
/ref>Leslie Eaton, 'E. Bronson Ingram, Who Built Family Concern Into Giant, 63', in '' The New York Times'', June 21, 199

/ref>Cythia Manley, 'Cancer Center helps carry on E. Bronson Ingram's legacy', in ''Reporter''

/ref>E. Bronson Ingram II '53, in ''Princeton Alumni Weekly'', September 13, 1995 'E. Bronson Ingram; Ran Oil and Barge Firm', in '' Los Angeles Times'', June 22, 199

/ref> He was a director and large shareholder of Weyerhaeuser. He was tried and acquitted of corruption regarding a Chicago sewage deal in the 1970s.

Early life

Erskine Bronson Ingram II was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota on November 27, 1931, the son of millionaire businessman Orrin Henry Ingram, Sr. and Hortense Bigelow Ingram. He was named after his grandfather.Ingram Marine Group history
His family moved to Nashville, Tennessee in 1948. E. Bronson Ingram was educated at the

Phillips Academy ("Not for Self") la, Finis Origine Pendet ("The End Depends Upon the Beginning") Youth From Every Quarter Knowledge and Goodness , address = 180 Main Street , city = Andover , state = Ma ...

and Montgomery Bell Academy. He attended college at Vanderbilt University and transferred to Princeton University, graduating in 1953.Tennessee Portraits
/ref> At Princeton, he majored in English, and belonged to the Republican Club.

Career

E.B. Ingram joined the United States Navy as a naval officer, when he sailed to Panama on a

destroyer In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, manoeuvrable, long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against powerful short range attackers. They were originally developed in ...

until 1955, when he resigned. He then started working for his father's company, the Ingram Oil & Refining Co., later known as the Ingram Corporation. In particular, he managed the company-owned

service stations A filling station, also known as a gas station () or petrol station (), is a facility that sells fuel and engine lubricants for motor vehicles. The most common fuels sold in the 2010s were gasoline (or petrol) and diesel fuel. Gasoline ...

and helped build truck stops where Ingram truckers could sleep, shower, or eat. After the death of his father in 1963, E.B. Ingram became President and his brother, Frederic B. Ingram, became Chairman of the Ingram Corporation. In 1976, E. Bronson and his brother Frederic were indicted for bribing officials in Illinois for a "$48 million Chicago sewage contract". E.B. Ingram was acquitted but his brother Frederic was convicted. By 1978, they split the company. Frederic kept the Ingram Corporation, which consisted of

oil refineries An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial process plant where petroleum (crude oil) is transformed and refined into useful products such as gasoline (petrol), diesel fuel, asphalt base, fuel oils, heating oil, kerosene, liquefie ...

and

pipeline Pipeline may refer to: Electronics, computers and computing * Pipeline (computing), a chain of data-processing stages or a CPU optimization found on ** Instruction pipelining, a technique for implementing instruction-level parallelism within a s ...

system, headquartered in New Orleans. E.B. Ingram took over the Tennessee Book Company, Ingram Materials Company, Ingram Barge Company, and Bluewater Insurance Company. He called it

. By 1995, the Ingram Barge Company became the Inland Marine Transportation Group, the third-largest inland waterway carrier in the United States. 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. He also founded Ingram Software; in 1985 it acquired Micro D and morphed into Ingram Micro Incorporated. It quickly became the largest distributor of microcomputer hardware and software in the world. E.B. Ingram Ingram also founded

Ingram Entertainment Ingram Entertainment Inc. is an American distributor of home entertainment products, like DVDs, audiobooks, video game software and hardware. Ingram Entertainment Inc, is the nation's largest distributor of DVD software. History The company has ...

, the largest wholesale distributor of pre-recorded videocassettes. He served on the Board of Directors of Weyerhaeuser. In 1988, he owned 222,380 shares. 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.

Philanthropy

E. Bronson Ingram held leadership positions in the Tennessee Performing Arts Center in the late 1970s and the state Bicentennial Celebration of 1996. He joined the Vanderbilt Board of Trust in 1967, and served as its Chairman from 1991 to 1995. He donated US$25 million to Vanderbilt. Additionally, he helped fundraise US$500 million for the university.E. Thomas Wood
The Empire Strikes Back: Protecting the Ingram family fortunes
''

Nashville Scene ''Nashville Scene'' is an alternative newsweekly in Nashville, Tennessee. It was founded in 1989, became a part of Village Voice Media in 1999, and later joined the ranks of sixteen other publications after a merger of Village Voice Media with ...

'', June 6, 1996 In 1993, he nominated the first African-American accepted for membership in the

Belle Meade Country Club Belle may refer to: * Belle (''Beauty and the Beast'') * Belle (given name), a list of people and fictional characters * Belle (surname), a list of people Brands and enterprises * Belle Air, a former airline with headquarters in Tirana, Albania ...

. He also supported Inroads and the Nashville Symphony. He was a member and former Chair of the PENCIL Foundation, a non-profit organization whose aim is to improve public education in Nashville. He served as the Chairman of the steering committee of Nashville's Agenda.

Personal life

In 1958, E. Bronson Ingram met Martha Robinson Rivers in New York City, and they got married the same year. They moved to New Orleans, where the Ingram Corporation was headquartered, but moved back to Nashville in 1961. They had three sons,

David Bronson Ingram David Bronson Ingram (born 1962/1963) is an American heir, businessman and philanthropist. He is the chairman and president of Ingram Entertainment, the largest distributor of DVDs and video games in the US. He is the founder and chairman of DBI ...

, Orrin H. Ingram II, and John R. Ingram, and one daughter, Robin Ingram Patton.

Death and legacy

E.B. Ingram died of cancer on June 15, 1995. At the time of his death, he was Tennessee's only

billionaire A billionaire is a person with a net worth of at least one billion (1,000,000,000, i.e., a thousand million) units of a given currency, usually of a major currency such as the United States dollar, euro, or pound sterling. The American busin ...

and 56th richest person in the United States. Golfer Arnold Palmer was a pallbearer at his funeral. He is buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery. The Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center and the Ingram Studio Arts Center are named for him.

Bibliography

About him

* Martha Rivers Ingram, ''E. Bronson Ingram: Complete These Unfinished Tasks of Mine'' (2001)Worldcat
/ref>

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ingram, Erskine Bronson 1931 births 1995 deaths Businesspeople from Saint Paul, Minnesota People from Nashville, Tennessee Military personnel from Minnesota Phillips Academy alumni Princeton University alumni Businesspeople from Tennessee American corporate directors Weyerhaeuser American billionaires Vanderbilt University people Philanthropists from Tennessee Deaths from cancer in Tennessee Ingram family 20th-century American businesspeople Burials at Mount Olivet Cemetery (Nashville)