Robert B. Rowling (born 1953) is an American

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 ...

businessman, and the Founder of TRT Holdings, the holding company of

Omni Hotels Omni Hotels & Resorts is an American privately held, international luxury hotel company based in Dallas, Texas. The company was founded in 1958 as Dunfey Hotels, and operates 50 properties in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, totaling over 2 ...

Early life

A native of

Corpus Christi, Texas Corpus Christi (; Ecclesiastical Latin: "'' Body of Christ"'') is a coastal city in the South Texas region of the U.S. state of Texas and the county seat and largest city of Nueces County, it also extends into Aransas, Kleberg, and San Patrici ...

, Rowling has an undergraduate degree from the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

and a doctorate in jurisprudence from

Southern Methodist University , mottoeng = "The truth will make you free" , established = , type = Private research university , accreditation = SACS , academic_affiliations = , religious_affiliation = United Methodist Church , president = R. Gerald Turner , prov ...

Career

In 1972, Rowling began working for Tana Oil and Gas, which was owned by his father, Reese Rowling, and William E Colson. In 1989

Texaco Texaco, Inc. ("The Texas Company") is an American Petroleum, oil brand owned and operated by Chevron Corporation. Its flagship product is its Gasoline, fuel "Texaco with Techron". It also owned the Havoline motor oil brand. Texaco was an Indepe ...

acquired Tana for $476 million, thereby providing money that was used to form TRT Holdings. Five years later, TRT Holdings sold Corpus Christi National Bank to

NationsBank NationsBank was one of the largest banking corporations in the United States, based in Charlotte, North Carolina. The company named NationsBank was formed through the merger of several other banks in 1991, and prior to that had been through mul ...

for $131 million. TRT Holdings would later purchase Omni Hotels for $500 million and

Gold's Gym Gold's Gym International, Inc. is an American chain of international co-ed fitness centers (commonly referred to as gyms) originally started by Joe Gold in Venice Beach, California. Each gym offers a variety of cardio and strength training equipm ...

for $180 million. In August 2010, Rowling made the winning bid to acquire the bankrupt

Amelia Island Plantation Omni Amelia Island Resort is a luxury resort community located on Amelia Island, Florida, the westernmost barrier island on the Atlantic Ocean in the U.S. The resort's tennis facility hosted the Bausch & Lomb Championships, a major Women's Tenn ...

Resort for $67.1 million. In July 2013, Rowling purchased six resorts from KSL Resorts including The Homestead 1766 in Hot Springs, Virginia. Rowling served as a regent to the

University of Texas System The University of Texas System (UT System) is an American government entity of the state of Texas that includes 13 higher educational institutions throughout the state including eight universities and five independent health institutions. The UT& ...

until February 2009 when he resigned over a controversy regarding bonuses paid to the UTIMCO investment staff. Governor

Rick Perry James Richard Perry (born March 4, 1950) is an American politician who served as the 14th United States secretary of energy from 2017 to 2019 and as the 47th governor of Texas from 2000 to 2015. Perry also ran unsuccessfully for the Republica ...

and Texas state senators had sought to go back on compensation agreements with the staff. Unwilling to break the contracts and disgusted by their grandstanding, Rowling quit during a Texas Senate Finance Committee meeting and followed it up a day later with a formal letter of resignation As of May 2017, he is worth US$6.7 billion. He is the 82nd richest person in the United States.

Political activities

He is a conservative

Republican Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...

and a major donor to the party. He is also one of four billionaire backers of the conservative political action group

American Crossroads American Crossroads is a US Super PAC that raises funds from donors to advocate for certain candidates of the Republican Party. It has pioneered many of the new methods of fundraising opened up by the Supreme Court's ruling in ''Citizens United ...

. According to an article published in ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...

'', four

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

Gold's Gym franchises split off from the brand after Rowling made a $2 million donation to Karl Rove's

PAC, sparking protest from gay rights advocates. He gave more than $2 million as a private donation completely independent from his company, TRT Holdings. TRT Holdings has also given an additional $2.5 million from the company treasury this election cycle, according to public filings. He commented to Fox News, explaining that his donation to American Crossroads had nothing to do with social policies that could spark crossfire. "I've never heard one discussion of a social issue. This is all about fiscal sanity." In April 2020, Governor

Greg Abbott Gregory Wayne Abbott (born November 13, 1957) is an American politician, attorney, and former jurist serving as the 48th governor of Texas since 2015. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 50th Tex ...

named Rowling to the Strike Force to Open Texas – a group "tasked with finding safe and effective ways to slowly reopen the state" amid the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

Personal life

He is married to Terry Hennersdorf Rowling, they have two children, and live in

Dallas, Texas Dallas () is the third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 million people. It is the largest city in and seat of Dallas County w ...

. They met when they were both studying for bachelor's degrees in business at the University of Texas at Austin.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rowling, Robert 1953 births Living people University of Texas at Austin alumni Southern Methodist University alumni People from Dallas American financiers American billionaires Texas Republicans