IRVIN A. LEVY

06/19/1934 - 04/05/2023

Irvin “Bubba” Levy was born in Houston at St. Joseph’s Hospital to Mary and Joseph Levy of Boling, Texas, on June 19, 1934. He spent his first ten years on the family’s ranch outside of Boling, in Wharton County, feeding hogs and chickens from the age of six. When he was ten, doctors recommended that Bubba’s father, an asthmatic, leave ranching, so the family moved to Houston, settling in Montrose in 1944. School in Boling had been tiny, with two grades combined in each classroom, and Bubba had sped through the work, so he entered Poe Elementary as a sixth grader, setting a precedent for precocious achievement that would continue throughout his life.

Bubba went on to Lanier Junior High School, continuing his academic excellence and channeling his ranch-boy physicality into athletics – especially football and track. He chose to follow his Lanier football coach Oree Middleton, who was also a neighbor, to San Jacinto High School, where he lettered in football and track and graduated – at 16 – seventh in a class of 459. Like many gifted Houston students at the time, Bubba was offered a scholarship to the Rice Institute (now Rice University), but, encouraged by a mentor – his father’s banker Dave Hedges – he chose to expand his horizons beyond Texas. As a young man, Bubba was often influenced by wise mentors and friends, and he paid the practice forward, becoming a consummate connector and booster – encouraging people to see their worth and work to achieve their goals.

In August 1951, he boarded a train from Houston to St. Louis, then to White River Junction, Vermont, to report for early football practice on a scholarship to Dartmouth College. He joined ROTC, earned five varsity athletics letters, and graduated magna cum laude in 1955 with a degree in History and Philosophy and a commission as a Second Lieutenant. A natural (and trained) raconteur, he was proud of having taken all five speech classes Dartmouth offered at the time.

After college, he reported for military service at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, hoping to become a pilot. Those hopes were dashed by a less-than-perfect vision test result, but Levy’s athleticism and keen mind pointed toward a career in intelligence. He joined a new program training flight crews in escape and evasion behind enemy lines, undergoing desert training in Nevada and Arctic training in Norway, eventually serving in the 308th Bombardment Wing out of Hunter Air Force Base in Savannah, GA. He traveled extensively with the Air Force, spending time in Morocco, Spain, Turkey, and the UK. On base at Hunter, Bubba was often summoned to play squash with Commander Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the Enola Gay, who became a lifelong friend. Levy retired from the military as a Major after eight years of service.

Returning to Houston in 1959, Bubba joined his father working at the Houston Corrugated Box Company. He was a one-man sales department, earning $500 a month. One year later, he had saved enough money to buy a third of the company, then acquired the entire company in 1964, expanding the business to include box manufacturing plants in Texas and New Jersey. He sold Houston Corrugated Box in 2000 and three days later received a pivotal call from his friend and fellow YPO (Young Presidents’ Organization) member Bob McNair.

McNair (and Houston) had been awarded the franchise for the NFL’s 32nd team, and he needed help. Bubba and two colleagues took over marketing for the Houston Texans, selling out their season in an unheard-of two years. He brought energy entrepreneur Javier Loya to the Texans as a minority owner of the team, and in 2004 Bubba joined Loya’s company, Choice Energy Services, as president. In the meantime, he launched another career as an executive business coach, formalizing his avocation of mentoring and connecting business professionals and entrepreneurs, starting with executives at MD Anderson Cancer Center. Bubba trained and developed business, medical, and arts leaders in Houston and beyond, including former Houston Symphony general manager Matthew VanBesien, who eventually became executive director of the New York Philharmonic.

Bubba served on numerous and diverse boards, often as their president. He helped the Downtown YMCA raise millions back in the 1960s and was part of Citizens for Good Schools, the group responsible for forcing integration in HISD in the early ‘70s. He was a founding board member of the Houston Food Bank, nudging his friend Charles Butt of HEB to support and found additional food banks around the state. He served on the board of the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Art, as head of recruitment in South Texas for Dartmouth, and on the US Olympic Committee with Peter Ueberroth, another friend, and colleague from YPO – a group that was foundational in Bubba’s life for decades, where he served as both local and national president. He was a big supporter of the Council on Recovery and a confidante of former CEO Mary Bell. After his mother and aunt were both diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, he co-founded the Parkinson’s Society of Harris County. Bubba was a committed life-long learner and read multiple newspapers daily.

Bubba was passionate about health and fitness and participated in competitive sports for most of his life.

From squash, he turned to racquetball, competing in doubles at the national level in his 30s and 40s, and then to tennis, playing regularly for decades and serving as president of the Houston Racquet Club. He loved to share health and fitness information, and his exhortations led many of his friends and colleagues to take steps to improve their health. He also used his own healthcare adventures to spark connections in and beyond the medical field – introducing an orthopedic surgeon to a robotics manufacturer, for example. At the time of his death, Bubba was a consultant to the Regenerative Medicine Institute, a stem cell clinic and research group, and fittingly, the Vicepresident for Talent, Culture, and Opportunity for Sagis, a physician-led pathology group with its own lab.

Bubba was predeceased by his parents, Joseph and Mary Levy; his sister, Elaine Levy Proler; and his son, Joseph Hyde Levy. He is survived by his wife, Gail Oktavec, daughters Heather Elaine Levy, Marianne Levy, and Rachael Levy, and granddaughter Elana Rose Grabel.

A Memorial Service will be held, Tuesday, April 11, 2023 at 1 p.m., at Congregation Emanu El, 1500 Sunset Blvd., Houston, Texas 77005

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.levyfuneraldirectors.com for the Levy family.