Magnate’s $20M gift to UTSA is big deal
Beer magnate Carlos Alvarez is giving $20 million to the University of Texas at San Antonio, its largest-ever gift from a living donor.
In recognition of the contribution, the school will name its college of business after Alvarez, founder of the Gambrinus company, the U.S. importer for Grupo Modelo beer brands.
The Carlos Alvarez College of Business will be the first named college in UTSA’S 52year history and the first business college in the UT system named for a Hispanic.
The gift from Alvarez and his wife, Malú, is the largest non-estate contribution ever made to the university, and it will help establish endowed faculty positions, graduate research fellowships and undergraduate research programs. In 2010, the school received the $22 million estate of the late Mary Mckinney, a San Antonio native and supporter of higher education.
Alvarez, co-chair of UTSA’S Campaign Leadership Council, said that having the business college named for him is gratifying not only for him and
his family, but for Mexican, Mexican-american and Hispanic communities across the region.
“It can produce a sense of belonging into a business college that has a name of a Hispanic that is a first generation (immigrant) from Mexico that established the business side of his life in San Antonio,” said Alvarez who also owns the Spoetzl brewery in Shiner, Texas and the Trumer Brewery in Berkeley, Calif.
“We are very proud to support UTSA and its outstanding students, many of whom — like me — are first-generation Mexican Americans.”
UTSA President Taylor Eighmy said a business school bearing Alvarez’s name is a perfect fit for a university whose student body is 60 percent Hispanic.
“In the life of an institution or the life of a president, these days do not come your way often, and when they do, it is the most joyous moment for the institution, for the community it serves and for the folks who’ve worked to have this come to fruition,” Eighmy said. “The joy that the Alvarez family has in making this gift is almost more than, if not commensurate with, the joy we all feel with receiving this gift.”
Alvarez, 70, the son of a beer distributor and a native of Acapulco, Mexico, first came to Texas as a Modelo beer company salesman peddling the first cases of Corona in America.
“I was at the right place at the right time and started pioneering those sales in the very first market that ignited everything, and that was Austin,” he said. “So, Texas is the origin of the most extraordinary success of a contemporary era for a beer brand.”
In 1986, Alvarez moved with his family from Mexico to San Antonio and founded Gambrinus. His company was responsible for selling, marketing and growing the Corona brand in the U.S. and around the world.
When he started with Modelo in 1978, the company sold 20,000 cases a year outside of Mexico.
Today, the Modelo portfolio sells 250 million cases a year worldwide.
Alvarez traces his connection with UTSA to the late Tom Frost, chairman emeritus of Cullen/ Frost Bankers Inc. Frost was an ardent advocate and fundraiser for the university and helped lead its first capital campaign.
Frost “took an interest in me and he really established in me my first association with UTSA — he was a major supporter, a champion for UTSA and supporting it in every way possible, and he got me interested,” Alvarez said.
The Alvarezes’ donation is not their first gift to the school. The family previously contributed more than $7.4 million to UTSA. In 2015, the university named the Carlos and Malú Alvarez Residence Hall in recognition of their support.
The couple’s latest gift “is a transformational moment for UTSA and the College of Business and will advance our mission to become a great public research university,” Eighmy said.
UTSA’S college of business encompasses more than 7,900 students, seven academic departments and two research centers. To date, the college has produced nearly 40,000 graduates.
“Higher education will always be the most important spark for change,” said Alvarez. “We, as a family, are blessed to be given the opportunity to make this gift to UTSA’S College of Business, not only to support aspiring leaders but to hopefully enable them to leave their own generational legacy that can positively impact San Antonio, Texas and beyond.”
Alvarez holds a degree in biochemical engineering from the Monterrey Institute of Technology in Mexico. He serves on the boards of Cullen/frost Bankers Inc., the United Way of San Antonio and the World Affairs Council of San Antonio. He is a member of Haven for Hope’s Leadership Advisory Council.
At the national level, he is a board member of National Public Radio and the World Affairs Council of America.
In 2011, he received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, which celebrates immigrants whose philanthropy has helped better their communities.
UTSA’S is not the first Texas business school to be named after a successful San Antonio businessperson.
In 1996, Texas A&M University in College Station named its business school after L. Lowry Mays, then CEO and president of Clear Channel Communications, after he made a $15 million contribution.
In 2000, the University of Texas at Austin named its business school in honor of B.J. “Red” Mccombs, the sports mogul and owner of auto dealerships, after a $50 million gift. And in 2005, St. Mary’s University named its business school for then-valero Energy CEO Bill Greehey in recognition of a $25 million donation.