Hilliard Family creates $1M professorship for sustainable environment

CLEMSON, SC –  September 6, 2011 – It seems fitting that a man honored by having a waterfall named for him would endow his alma mater with a professorship in environmental sustainability.

In 2008, Hilliard Falls was named for R. Glenn Hilliard by the Foothills Trail Conference to honor its founder and first chairman. Hilliard Falls is a 50-foot cascade just off the Foothills Trail about 5.5 miles from the Bad Creek trailhead above Lake Jocassee.

Today, Hilliard, a noted business leader, environmentalist, arts patron and education advocate, and his wife, Heather, have provided Clemson University with a $1 million endowment. The gift will create the Glenn ’65 and Heather Hilliard Endowed Professorship in Environmental Sustainability. The post will be a leadership position in Clemson’s Center of Economic Excellence in Sustainable Development, created in 2010 to develop new technologies to foster sustainability, protect the state’s natural resources and encourage smart growth.

Environmental sustainability is more than a desirable goal,” said Hilliard. “It is the ethical and economic wellspring for our planet and our people. Heather and I love South Carolina and its natural heritage, and we want our state to be a wonderful place to live, play and work for generations to come. The purpose of this Clemson University professorship is to foster the identification and preservation of natural environments in the state of South Carolina and to identify and support sustainable development and economic growth for our state in places other than in or around our irreplaceable natural environments. One of our goals in life is to leave this world, and our state, a better and more beautiful place. We believe this Clemson University professorship will help to do that long after we are gone.”

The gift qualifies Clemson for a dollar-for-dollar match from the state, creating a $2 million professorship.

This is not just a well-considered and much-appreciated gift to Clemson University, it is also a very forward-thinking investment in all our futures, said Clemson President James F. Barker. Glenn and Heather have a keen personal interest in environmental sustainability and in seeing that future generations will continue to enjoy the benefits of a natural world that has been intelligently and sensitively developed. Their generosity will have a lasting legacy.

Research in sustainable development focuses on areas in which the natural and built environments meet, said Gene Eidson, Institute of Applied Ecology director and lead scientist in the new center. The result of that research will be tools, products and services to better monitor, manage and protect the environment while allowing for continued economic growth and development, he said.

The Hilliard legacy will permanently fund a faculty post in the College of Agriculture, Forestry and Life Sciences, where the center resides. Last year the Thomas F. Hash ’69 Endowed Chair in Sustainable Development was created in the College of Engineering and Science in connection with the center.

The very nature of this field requires an interdisciplinary approach and close cooperation, Eidson said. To pull together the right people to address the very complex problems of environmental sustainability will take a number of faculty from diverse backgrounds. The only way to make that approach work is to have people in different colleges work together, and that is something we have to build in from the start.

The Center of Economic Excellence (CoEE), now called the SmartState program, was established by the South Carolina General Assembly in 2002 and is funded through the South Carolina Education Lottery. State and private funds are matched dollar-for-dollar to create Centers of Economic Excellence in research areas that will advance South Carolina’s economy.

Hilliard graduated from Clemson in 1965 with a bachelor’s degree in English. After leaving Clemson, he earned a law degree at George Washington University and worked in Washington, D.C., for the late South Carolina congressman William Jennings Bryan Dorn.

Since then, Hilliard has led, as CEO and chairman, Liberty Life Insurance Co., ING Americas; and as chairman, CNO Finanicial Inc. He continues to serve as CEO of Hilliard Group LLC, an investment and advisory firm in Atlanta; and is a director of Columbia Funds Trust and chairman of the board of Banc of America Funds Series Trust.

He is a respected leader in a dozen arts, environmental and educational organizations throughout the country. Avid art collectors, the Hilliards have focused their collecting on Western and  Southern women artists. Hilliard has developed strong relationships with Atlanta’s High Museum, the Woodruff Arts Center and Brookgreen Gardens, along with Denver’s Museum of Art and the Colorado Symphony. During the Greenville years of his career, Hilliard was connected with the Greenville Art Museum, served as founding chairman of the S.C. Governor’s School for the Arts and chaired the S.C. Poet Laureate search committee. In 1986 Hilliard was appointed a Palmetto Gentleman by Gov. Dick Riley and in 1990 was accorded that same honor by Gov. Carroll Campbell.

He served as member and chairman of the Clemson University Foundation board of directors from 2004 to 2006 and has been credited in part for the foundation’s rise into the top 25 percent of all university endowments in investment performance. Hilliard received the Alumni Distinguished Service Award in 2008. He is a major donor to the Clemson Fund and IPTAY and was the inaugural donor to Clemson’s Palmetto Challenge in support of research and education initiatives that advance the South Carolina economy.

The Glenn ’65 and Heather Hilliard Endowed Professorship in Environmental Sustainability is part of Clemson’s Will to Lead capital campaign, an effort to raise more than $600 million to support students and faculty.